Cui Li urges stronger capacity to handle health emergency

Cui Li, vice-minister of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, attended the national health emergency work conference in Suzhou, Jiangsu province on Jan 18.

Cui delivered a keynote speech at the conference, noting that in the past year national health emergency work has made significant achievements.

Emergency skill competitions have taken place across the country, and health emergency standardization has been steadily pushed forward, she said. Over the past five years health emergency work and response capacity have greatly improved, she added.

Cui suggested that this year’s health emergency work should focus on health emergency team management, bases construction, training and drilling, standardization management, and monitoring and risk assessment.

“Health departments at all levels should upgrade their capacity to better respond to health emergency cases such as H7N9 and exotic acute contagious diseases. Health emergency teams should rapidly take part in emergency medical rescue once an accident or disaster happens,”Cui added.