Three agencies including the National Development and Reform Commission ("NDRC") have recently issued the Plan for the Building of the Public Health Control and Treatment Capacity (the "Plan").
The Plan lays out five tasks for the capacity building, including "modernizing the disease prevention and control system". Among others, the Plan calls for thorough improvement of facilities and equipment of disease control institutions, and ensuring the availability of at least one laboratory of the bio-safety level P3 in each province and at least one laboratory of the bio-safety level P2 in each prefecture-level city, adding that these labs shall have the capability to test and detect pathogens of infectious diseases and health hazard factors and the capabilities required for the execution of national health standards. In addition, relying on high-level hospitals (including traditional Chinese medicine hospitals) with strong comprehensive strengths, particular those having prominent superiority in such specialties as infectious diseases, respiration and intensive care, efforts will be made, in light of the population size, the covered regions and local pressure in epidemic prevention and control and in combination with the building of the national emergency response task forces, to construct one to three treatment bases for major epidemic diseases in each province which will be tasked with centralized treatment of critical and severe patients and centralized storage of emergency supplies reserves. Furthermore, the Plan expounds on the overall thoughts, fund arrangements, safeguard measures, among others.