(ECNS) -- The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday that COVID-19 is no longer a global health emergency, which will benefit China’s social and economic development and international exchanges, said Liang Wannian, head of the COVID-19 response expert panel under the National Health Commission (NHC), on Thursday.
Although the WHO declared an end to the public health emergency of international concern, it doesn’t mean that people can leave the pandemic behind, said Liang. “We should insist on pandemic prevention and control measures.”
He pointed out that China still needs to carry on COVID-related work, including monitoring potential variants, strengthening vaccination for high-risk and key groups, and improving clinical treatment ability, especially the treatment of severe cases.
According to ShiGuoqing, deputy director of Public Health Emergency Center of China CDC, China has established a multi-channel monitoring and early warning system. For example, medical institutions with fever clinics and consultation rooms all over the country need to report the number of patients with fever every day, including those who tested positive.
Shi said that the COVID-19 cases found through nucleic acid and antigen testing and cluster cases should be reported and urban sewage systems are also under detection to explore the prevalence of COVID-19at the community level.
“We should comprehensively understand the epidemic situation and its epidemiological and clinical characteristics through multi-channel integration of monitoring and early warning systems,” he said, adding that China needs to fully implement related prevention and control measures.
京公網安備 11010202009201號