Early warning of infectious diseases key focus of health agency's overhaul

Enhancing early warning and monitoring of infectious diseases, and improving epidemiological investigation and risk evaluation are some of the key tasks for China as it restructures its public health agency, a senior official said on Saturday.

The country began overhauling its disease control and prevention system during the COVID-19 epidemic, including setting up the National Administration of Disease Prevention and Control, a new central-level body, in May last year.

Shen Hongbin, deputy director of the administration and newly-appointed head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said that "a multi-point trigger mechanism for intelligent early warning" should be established in the next few years.

The new system is expected to coordinate information sharing across disease control and medical institutions, promote communication between different government departments including authorities of public security, information technology, immigration and education.

Information on the national, provincial, city and county levels will also be shared simultaneously, he said during the opening ceremony of the 2022 National Vaccines and Health Conference held in Beijing.

New tools and methods, such as artificial intelligence and big data, should be used to improve public health workers' ability in conducting epidemiological surveys and giving adequate risk appraisals.

He added that more efforts will be devoted to creating a national network of public health labs, enhancing training on operation practices and biosecurity, and building more high-level labs.

Meanwhile, Shen said authorities will establish an efficient emergency response and decision-making system, tap into advanced data analysis platforms and boost R&D capabilities in various aspects, including development of diagnostic kits and vaccines.