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Animal-borne diseases challenge health system
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-03-12 20:12
With pig-borne disease and bird flu occurring one after another, China's
disease control network is facing new challenges after the outbreak of the
disease of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).
"China's disease
pattern is undergoing fast changes with the frequent emergence of new infectious
diseases transmitted from animals to the humans, which pose big challenges to
the country's disease prevention and control work," Chinese Minister of Public
Health Gao Qiang said at the on-going session of the tenth National People's
Congress.
These diseases are not new to the human beings and nearly 200
of them have been found to be passed from animals to humans. Some of the
better-known examples include anthrax, plague and haemorrhaging fever.
In June 2005, a type of pig-borne disease called swine streptococosis
occurred in China's southwestern province of Sichuan, infecting more than 200
people and killing 38 others.
In November 2005, two human cases of H5N1
bird flu were confirmed for the first time on the Chinese mainland. So far, the
country has reported 15 human cases with 10 deaths.
The emerging
animal-related diseases has put China on high alert. The ministries of health
and agriculture have jointly set up new mechanism to warn about outbreaks of
such diseases, including forming a joint working team and a panel of experts.
In November that year, the State Council, or the central government,
enacted regulations and emergency response plans on animal epidemics, requiring
government departments at various levels to get ready for the diseases and
promising to penalize those who failed in their duties.
In the ensuing
month, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, China's top
legislature, passed the draft of Law on Animal Husbandry, laying down the legal
foundation to ensure sound breeding conditions of livestock and livestock
product quality.
Meanwhile, scientific researches on animal-related
diseases were also beefed up.
In the newly published plan of scientific and
technological development (2006-2020), the surveillance, quarantine, testing and
diagnosis of animal-born diseases were listed as crucial tasks.
China's
health system itself is also much stronger compared with that in 2003 when the
SARS hit China.
According to Premier Wen Jiabao's work report delivered
to the on-going NPC session, about 10.5 billion yuan (about 1.3 billion US
dollars) has been invested over the past three years to build China's disease
prevention and control network. Another 16.4 billion yuan was input to establish
the country's response system for public health emergencies.
But still,
Chinese health officials remain vigilant.
"There are still some problems
in the emergency response network," Vice Minister of Health Wang Longde said,
noting that further improvement should be made to enforce the people's
observance of law and regulations, implementation of government orders,
administrative supervision and efficiency of disease reporting.
He also
underlined that more substantial efforts should be made to train more local
health workers and improve their ability to sense a public health crisis and to
detect possible epidemics.
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