• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Chinese Health Ministry Urges Online Reporting of Contagious Diseases

Posted on: Saturday, 12 November 2005, 06:00 CST

Text of report by reporter Zhu Yu entitled: "Health Ministry circular urges direct online reporting of pneumonia of unknown causes"; carried by official Chinese news agency Xinhua (New China News Agency)

Beijing, 11 November: The Ministry of Health recently issued a circular reaffirming the need to step up direct online reporting of contagious diseases. The circular urged all disease prevention and control agencies [DPCA] as well as medical establishments to report, via the direct online reporting system, within two hours, in the case of urban areas, and within six hours, in the case of rural areas, after the discovery of plague, cholera, contagious atypical pneumonia, woolsorter's disease, highly pathogenic avian flu contracted by humans, other class-A contagious and suspected diseases, and those managed like class-A diseases.

The circular emphasized that when cases of pneumonia with unknown causes, cases of death from unknown causes, cases of contagious atypical pneumonia, and cases of early warning of highly pathogenic avian flu contracted by humans are discovered, medical establishments as well as DPCA at all levels should strictly follow the requirements of the "(Tentative) Implementation Plan for Monitoring Cases of Pneumonia of Unknown Causes Throughout the Country" and the "(Tentative) Implementation Plan for Monitoring Cases of Death from Unknown Causes by Medical Establishments At and Above the County Level Throughout the Nation" in reporting the diseases and taking the corresponding measures.

The circular also urged that legal reporting units not equipped with direct online reporting facilities should also use the fastest method of communication to report the main substance on the "Contagious Disease Report Card" to DPCA in their localities. DPCA at all levels should assign special people to conduct mobile monitoring of information from the reports on contagious diseases in their respective administrative regions, promptly review the information from these reports, daily and regularly sum up and analyse the disease conditions and changes in their areas of jurisdiction, and submit the result of analysis to the health administration departments at the corresponding level; when a major disease condition is discovered, they should promptly prepare a special-topic report, while reporting to the disease prevention and control agency at the next higher level.

Source: BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific

More News in this Category