The nucleic acid testing in a lab File Photo: VCG

China's National Bureau of Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday released a regulation about the trial management measures for risk assessment of infectious disease epidemics, which aims to further enhance the country's early monitoring and warning capability for an epidemic, as well as to prevent and mitigate public health risks.

The formulation of the regulation will also contribute to improving the level of risk management for infectious disease epidemics both nationally and locally, while standardizing the work of risk assessment.

The regulation clearly defines the division of responsibilities among relevant departments and provides differentiated explanations for the types of the risk assessments.

The regulation stipulates that the competent departments for disease control and prevention at all levels should regularly share multi-channel monitoring information on infectious disease epidemics with departments such as health, education, transportation, and meteorology.

The regulation also clarifies that both national and provincial disease control departments should establish expert groups proficient in preventive medicine, clinical medicine, emergency management and other areas of professional knowledge.

These expert groups will be commissioned by the competent departments to conduct risk assessments of major infectious disease outbreaks.

National and provincial disease prevention and control institutions should conduct routine risk assessments once a week, while municipal and county-level institutions should conduct the assessment once a month, according to the regulation.

Additionally, the regulation categorizes the risk assessment of infectious disease epidemics into routine and thematic assessments.

Routine assessments refer to the comprehensive analysis of information from multiple channels to identify potential infectious disease risks within the jurisdiction and provide recommendations for preventing and mitigating these risks.

Thematic assessments are evaluations conducted on specific infectious disease outbreaks that may lead to significant public health risks.

According to the regulation, thematic assessments also include evaluations of the epidemic in specific periods and geographical areas, or risks associated with large-scale events, as well as secondary and derivative infectious disease outbreaks caused by natural disasters and accidents.

The risk assessment of infectious disease epidemics can be conducted using qualitative research methods such as the Delphi method, expert interviews, and quantitative analysis methods such as infectious disease dynamic transmission models.

Global Times