More than 12,000 medical teams with 65,500 staff had been
dispatched to snow-stricken areas as of midnight on Saturday,
according to an estimate provided by the Ministry of Health.
The teams were in charge of medical treatment, epidemic
prevention and sanitation supervision, the ministry said. So far,
the teams had treated 216,000 ill and injured persons in areas hit
by the heaviest snow in five decades.
The authorities have also delivered more than 6.3 million
brochures advising the public on disease prevention and the impact
of the bad weather.
No cases of infectious disease or food poisoning had been
reported in snow-disaster areas by Jan. 31, the Ministry said on
Saturday.
About 33,370 square meters of health facilities, such as
hospitals, have collapsed and another 74,461 sq m were in danger of
collapsing, according to the ministry.
Medical machinery losses stood at 25.2 million yuan (about 3.5
million U.S. dollars) and losses of large medical equipment reached
26.9 million yuan.
The snow, the heaviest in decades in many places, has been
falling in China's eastern, central and southern regions for almost
three weeks. It has caused deaths, structural collapses, blackouts,
accidents, transport problems and livestock and crop
destruction.
Health Minister Chen Zhu and Deputy Minister Gao Qiang have
ordered public health administrations to implement state medical
procedures and emergency plans to ensure timely treatment for the
ill and injured.
Local health administrations must immediately report any
outbreaks of illness, including infectious diseases, food or carbon
monoxide poisoning and illness of unknown origin, the ministry
ordered.
(Xinhua News Agency February 3, 2008)