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)