BEIJING, April 13 -- Chinese authorities on Monday urged efforts to send medical experts and resources from inland areas to border regions to help fight novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
The instruction was given at a meeting of the leading group of China's COVID-19 epidemic response, which was chaired by Premier Li Keqiang, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee.
The meeting called for continuously improving the measures to prevent imported COVID-19 cases, stressing identifying and eliminating the potential risks of an epidemic rebound to create the necessary conditions for work resumption.
The working teams of medical experts will support and guide local epidemic prevention and control work, the construction of makeshift hospitals, the setting-up of designated quarantine facilities and medical institutions, and the treatment of patients.
Testing kits and facilities, and diagnosis and treatment equipment should be sent to border regions and port cities, according to the meeting.
The meeting stressed strict supervision of the quality of export medical materials, and punishments for unqualified and substandard production and the practices of driving up the prices of epidemic prevention products and raw materials.
Requiring strengthened nucleic acid testing of travelers leaving Wuhan, the hardest-hit city in the COVID-19 outbreak in China, the meeting also called for the expansion of testing and better management of travelers' health conditions.
Those who are set to work as teachers, medical workers or service providers at public places after leaving Wuhan should all undergo nucleic acid testing, noted the meeting.
The meeting demanded further prevention and control efforts at the community level, stressing that Chinese and foreigners should receive equal treatment.
It also stressed the need for epidemiological investigations and management of asymptomatic cases and their close contacts.
Testing capabilities should be further improved and the testing time should be shortened, according to the meeting.
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.