Shanghai is stepping up efforts to prevent infectious respiratory diseases as viruses that lead to human bird flu, flu and severe acute respiratory syndrome could become active.

The Shanghai Health Bureau issued a warning yesterday and ordered local hospitals to report any unidentified pneumonia case through an online network to health bureaus at the district or county levels promptly from tomorrow to April 15.

District and county-level health bureaus are responsible for organizing medical experts within 24 hours to check if the cases involve human bird flu or SARS, and cases that are suspected to be bird flu should be reported to the city's health bureau immediately.

Local medical institutes are required to isolate patients who are diagnosed with infectious respiratory diseases or have similar symptoms to prevent the viruses from spreading.

The city's 43 monitoring sites that are designated by health authorities should report the number of flu cases to district and county-level disease control and prevention centers on a daily basis, the health bureau said.

The Shanghai Health Bureau reminds residents to be vigilant about respiratory diseases and receive treatment at medical institutes as soon as possible.

(Shanghai Daily November 15, 2007)