Commentary
BEIJING – The central authorities have stepped up efforts to build a strong public health system and improve the nation’s capacity for disease prevention and treatment to better protect its people’s health.
The measures, laid out at a high-level symposium presided over by President Xi Jinping on Tuesday, cover all the key aspects of public health. These include more effective early-stage epidemic warning, the combination of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and Western medicine, scientific and technological advancement, as well as the drafting and amending of laws.
Such a wide-ranging arrangement demonstrates that China is determined to shore up shortcomings in its public health system as the country is in the homestretch toward completing the building of “xiaokang” (“comparatively well-of”), a moderately prosperous society in all respects.
Safeguarding the people’s health is an essential part of this centennial goal of “xiaokang”. And it is the people who have the final say in whether this goal has been achieved or not.
Ensuring public health for 1.4 billion people is no easy job for the world’s largest developing country. Reforms in this sector need large-scale allocation of human resources, huge financial inputs and precise policy coordination. The task is especially challenging when the country is faced with the pressure of an economic downturn.
Tuesday’s symposium, however, has demonstrated China’s readiness for the worst-case scenarios and resolve to forestall major risks in health care.
China will make disease prevention measures more calibrated and effective, with greater efforts in streamlining systems and mechanisms, clarifying functions and improving professional competence.
The country will also build a better monitoring system for epidemics and public health emergencies and a better monitoring mechanism for diseases of unknown causes and abnormal health incidents. Public health campaigns will be carried out, capabilities of TCM hospitals improved, scientific and technological inputs increased and laws revised, among other efforts, to weave a strong network for safeguarding the people’s health.
Based on the country’s unique political and institutional strengths, a strong economic foundation, and the experience accumulated from fighting COVID-19 and previous epidemics, China has the ability to ensure that its people’s lives are always respected, protected and put above all others on their way to pursue happiness.
– Xinhua
