The World Health Organization (WHO) yesterday urged those
responsible for organizing the 2008 Beijing Olympics to take action to meet
the immense challenge of handling public health and emergency
response issues during the Games. .
Henk Bekedam, China's WHO Representative said, "The influx of
visitors in 2008 will bring enormous challenges to the surveillance
and reporting mechanisms regarding infections and non-communicable
diseases.
"To tackle any possible public health incidents a strong
surveillance system must be in place as soon as possible, not only
focusing on the three-week Olympic Games period but also the months
before," he added. .
China had greatly enhanced its monitoring systems since the SARS
outbreak which arrived in Beijing in 2003 and 2004 and the recent
bird flu problem, he added.
But he warned that China must strengthen epidemic surveillance
capacity from the bottom up. "By this I mean that people who first
find infectious disease outbreaks should be able to report them in
a timely fashion," he said on the sidelines of the Workshop on
Public Health Safety and Emergency Response for the Beijing Olympic
Games.
Wang Yu, director of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and
Prevention said, "We will do our best to monitor the symptoms of
any infectious diseases, quickly issue warnings and take effective
emergency response measures."
China has established the world's biggest reporting system for
many infectious diseases, Wang said. He added that in the coming
two years it would become an increasingly urgent task for China to
set up a surveillance system and information-sharing network.
Beijing had already established a comprehensive prevention and
control system, including surveillance and response, to contain any
outbreaks of infectious diseases, said Liang Wannian, deputy
director of the Beijing Health Bureau.
As well as infectious disease prevention China has also begun to
work comprehensively in a range of other public health fields.
For example, the Olympic Organizing Committee have already
selected farms to provide fresh food for those involved in the
Games, said Dai Jianping, deputy director of Department of Medical
and Health Services of the organizing committee.
On these farms tests and experiments are being done on livestock
and vegetables to ensure athletes and visitors are offered the
highest quality food available.
(China Daily May 18, 2006)