Chinese authorities on Tuesday deployed further measures to improve patient admission and survival rates and reduce infection and mortality rates in China's central province Hubei and its capital Wuhan amid efforts to curb the pneumonia epidemic caused by the novel coronavirus.
More measures will be taken to ensure the supply of medical resources and daily necessities, according to a meeting of the leading group of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee on the prevention and control of the novel coronavirus outbreak.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and also head of the aforementioned leading group, presided over the meeting.
Among measures to provide more beds to patients, a number of hotels, venues and training centers will be used as sites to carry out centralized treatment of suspected infections and patients showing mild symptoms or medical observation over close contacts, according to the meeting.
A number of mobile hospitals and an additional 2,000 medical and nursing workers will be organized to support Hubei.
To concentrate a superior force for patient treatment, authorities said, teams of quality medical personnel will be organized to take over the management of intensive care hospitals or wards.
Authorities required efforts to improve the detection and diagnosis capacity, shorten the testing period and dispatch testing personnel and materials from disease control systems nationwide to support Wuhan, saying that qualified third-party institutions will be allowed to carry out nucleic acid testing.
Regarding the improvement of the novel coronavirus diagnosis and treatment guideline, the meeting stressed that measures proved effective in clinical use should be included in the treatment guideline, calling for integrating traditional Chinese and Western medicine in treating patients to improve effectiveness.
Authorities underscored concentrating medical and protective resources on the frontline in the epidemic battle while ensuring the supply of daily necessities.
The meeting called for timely solutions to problems in trans-regional transportation, improvement in the efficiency of supply distribution and ensuring market supply.
Daily allocation of essential medical resources for curbing the epidemic should be further improved, according to the meeting.
The meeting also required efforts to avoid a large-scale, concentrated travel rush after the Spring Festival holiday ends.
Wang Huning, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and deputy head of the leading group, attended the meeting.
