Disease control staff in local hospitals trial

Shanghai health authority is enhancing the prevention and control of hospital infections by introducing special staff in charge of disease control at local hospitals, officials said on Tuesday.

The staff, usually from district-based centers for disease control and prevention, will team up with hospitals to perfect an infectious disease prevention, treatment and management mechanism to improve pandemic detection, reporting and treatment.

The trial it introduced under the requirement of the National Health Commission after the COVID-19 pandemic, local health officials said.

"We created the entire mechanism and carried out trials in Changning, Jiading and Pudong. So far, over 60 disease control supervisors have entered some 170 designated hospitals at the three districts to carry out work and they have already detected risks and helped conduct renovation," said Zhang Hao, vice director of Shanghai Health Commission.

Zhu Weiping, one of the disease control supervisors in Pudong, said her team detected that the peak of respiratory disease this winter arrived earlier than usual after working at the hospitals and helped medical facilities to better distribute patients and streamline the medical process in time and urged hospitals to step up ventilation to reduce the risk of hospital infection.

"We also launched training on infectious disease prevention and control in hospitals to raise medics' awareness and regulate their performances," she said.