BEIJING, June 7 (Xinhua) -- (By Li Jingze) -- "The practice in the war against epidemics has proved that China's medical and health care system and public health emergency contingency system are generally effective, but some problems and shortcomings have also been exposed in the fight." Ma Xiaowei, head of China's National Health Commission, said on July 7.

China's State Council Information Office released a white paper on "Fighting Covid-19 China in Action" (hereinafter referred to as "the white paper") and held a press conference on the same day. "According to the Government Work Report this year, a number of shortcomings have been revealed in public health emergency management and other aspects." Accordingly, a journalist at the meeting asked how China would "make up for the shortcomings".

Ma Xiaowei replied with five main aspects.

First, we need to further improve the public health investment mechanism, improve the basic conditions of disease prevention and control, and further implement and improve the public health service programs.

Second, we need to improve the functional positioning, in the national, provincial, municipal and county-level disease prevention and control system, to further increase the capability of prevention and control of acute infectious diseases and emergency response, to pinpoint the functional positioning of disease prevention and control centers at all levels.

Third, we need to innovate the mechanisms for the integration of medical prevention and treatment, and make China's disease prevention and control system and medical treatment system achieve "personnel sharing, information sharing, resources sharing", "to ensure the combination of prevention and treatment in terms of the institutional innovation, mechanism security, and personnel management ".

Fourth,we need to optimize the monitoring system, increase the early warning capability, further strengthen and modify the "network epidemic direct reporting system" and "administrative reporting of public health emergencies", and set up a public opinion monitoring system, medical personnel reporting system, etc.

Fifth, we need to build a team of talents and encourage their development, "focusing on the training of professionals in pathogenic detection, on-site epidemiological investigation, laboratory testing, diagnosis and analysis of the epidemic situation.

The white paper noted that as of 24:00 on May 31, 2020, a total of 83,017 confirmed cases had been reported in mainland China. The total number of COVID-19 patients discharged from hospitals after recovery reached 78,307 with the total death toll at 4,634, a cure rate of 94.3% and a disease death rate of 5.6%.

"The national cure rate of Covid-19 exceeds the average cure rate of viral pneumonia." Accordingly, Ma noted that through this fight, "we have raised the treatment of severe viral pneumonia to a new level."

In reviewing China's medical rescue and treatments, he also summarized them in five areas.

The first is to take resolute and strong measures to control the source of infection and reduce the rate of infection, so as to ensure that “all those in need are tested, isolated, hospitalized or treated".

The second is to speed up detection. After the arrival of the medical group in Wuhan, be the measures of the delegation of authority to detect infectious diseases, and expanding the laboratory, "the detection cycle fin Wuhan was shortened from 2 days to 4 hours - 6 hours, the number of detected people increased from only 300 per day to 50,000 per day", and the formation of a closed-loop system for the flow of work and detection "allowed us to take the initiative in controlling the epidemic".

The third is to make every attempt to ensure the supply of medical services and increase the admission rate. "More than 2,000 medical institutions and hospitals for intensive care have been designated nationwide, while there are more than 10,000 outpatient clinics for fever". In Wuhan, "an emergency treatment network with a graded layout of designated hospitals, makeshift hospitals and isolation sites has been established ".

The fourth is to use a number of additional isolation sites and transform more than 630 hotels, schools, training centers and medical institutions into isolation rooms for close contacts and suspected patients.

The fifth is to make every effort to treat patients, improve the cure rate and reduce the death rate. "346 national medical teams, 42,000 medical workers and 19,000 medical personnel for critically ill patients rushed to Hubei and Wuhan for treatment."

Ma also stressed that Chinese medicine plays a very important role, which should also be summarized and learned from. According to the white paper, the participation of TCM in the treatment of confirmed cases reached 92%, and the adoption rate and total efficiency of TCM in confirmed cases in Hubei Province exceeded 90%. (The end)