China releases management measures for medical emergency response teams

BEIJING -- China's National Health Commission and two other departments have jointly released measures for the management of the country's national medical emergency response teams.

According to the measures, China's national medical emergency response teams are categorized to provide services during major epidemics, poisoning incidents, nuclear and radiation emergencies, acute infectious disease outbreaks, and other situations requiring medical rescue.

Each national medical emergency response team should be composed of more than 30 healthcare professionals and medical emergency management workers as well as technical and logistic support members, according to the measures.

The measures stipulate that medical rescue teams must have the capacity to conduct 20 damage control surgeries, attend to 200 emergency patients and outpatients, and handle 20 observation beds per day.

Teams responsible for major epidemic response should be capable of conducting laboratory testing for over 1,000 individuals and serving 200 outpatients per day. They should also have the capability to quarantine and transfer patients and conduct epidemiological investigations, according to the measures.