Photo: VCG

China's draft amendment on frontier health and quarantine was submitted for review for a second time at the 10th meeting of the 14th National People's Congress Standing Committee on Tuesday. 

The draft improves measures of routinely preventing the cross-border transmission of infectious diseases. 

It also clearly stipulates border health and quarantine responsibilities of the customs, including protecting trade secrets, personal privacy, and personal information in accordance with the law, and the customs shall not infringe on the legitimate rights and interests of relevant entities and individuals.

In detail, customs authorities are responsible to require inbound and outbound personnel to undergo temperature checks and medical inspections as general quarantine inspection measures. 

Depending on the situation, further quarantine inspection measures such as medical examinations may be implemented for relevant inbound and outbound personnel. 

The General Administration of Customs shoulder the responsibilities to continuously optimize quarantine inspection processes, and put in place facilitation arrangements, based on domestic and international infectious disease monitoring and risk assessment.

In addition, the second draft clearly defines the subject of quarantine and transfer of infectious diseases and suspected cases of infection, indicating that customs should issue medical convenience cards to individuals who may be infected with monitored infectious diseases. 

China's current frontier health and quarantine law was first implemented in 1987 and has since been partially amended in 2007, 2009 and 2018.

Global Times