Integrated approach sought to prevent infectious diseases

Medical experts and infectious disease professionals have highlighted the demand for a more integrated approach toward community health-care service and the need for continuous monitoring of infectious diseases.

Professor Wen Yumei at the Institutes of Biomedical Sciences of Fudan University, also a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, proposed retaining the fever clinics in the future to serve as monitoring stations for potential epidemics and infectious diseases.

She told a forum hosted by the Fudan University School of Management over the weekend that it's also essential to keep fever clinics and grassroots health-care institutions in place in the future to serve as a precautionary measure as well as viral research laboratories in the long run to keep monitoring epidemics.

Wen proposed setting up a specialized department on the national level to offer warning and advice over possible disease outbreaks and ensure prevention and treatment measures.

"It's important to bring health authorities, and veterinary researchers together for an integrated approach to monitor not only infectious diseases in humans but also diseases in animals to safeguard the health and wellbeing of the society," she said.

Zhang Wenhong, the city's top infectious disease expert and head of the center of infectious diseases at Huashan Hospital of Fudan Univerisity, also pointed out that its important that community health-care service providers detect critically-ill patients and vulnerable groups as early as possible.

Since last week, a total of 132 city-level medical experts from Shanghai's top hospitals have been organized into 16 special groups and dispatched by local health authorities to offer consultancy and diagnosis for district- and community-level medical centers.

Through standard treatment protocols, the service will help relieve the burden at secondary and tertiary hospitals.

"During the outbreak of infectious diseases, it's crucial to serve not just individual patients, but the general public and the whole population," he said.

Zhang also noted that early treatment and intervention for vulnerable and high-risk groups are essential to tackle not only the epidemic, but other public health issues and chronic illness in an aging society.