Preparations key to curbing rural epidemic

A resident seeks medical advice and a prescription at a temporary fever clinic in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, on Sunday. Some nucleic acid testing booths in the city have been upgraded to temporary fever clinics to provide more convenient services to residents. （WANG JIANKANG/FOR CHINA DAILY）

With the approach of the Lunar New Year, the central authorities have called on rural areas to adopt a scientific and effective response to the novel coronavirus epidemic.

Many cities in China are at the peak of infections and transmission. With the arrival of the homeward rush, the virus will take it as an opportunity to spread from the cities to villages. Rural areas generally have scarcer medical resources and have a large number of elderly and children. How to deal with the impact of the upcoming cluster infections will be a great test of the local authorities' capabilities.

Medicines and other medical resources need to be distributed, the capacity of township health centers must be boosted and children and the elderly have to be vaccinated as soon as possible. Local governments must get ahead of the game and think through the details so they don't have to respond to an emergency in a panic.

Connecting urban hospitals with rural areas is a key part of this work. As the central government has urged, all localities should select capable hospitals in cities with strong comprehensive strength and establish a matching support mechanism with respective counties to form a hierarchical diagnosis and treatment connection mechanism so as to channel urban resources to rural residents in an orderly and predictable way.

Since rural areas are large and sparsely populated, the coverage of individual medical institutions is ultimately limited. More targeted measures are needed to ensure that rural residents have access to timely medical services. For example, some places have vigorously promoted the service of family doctors, and built a service grid in which members of village public health committees, rural doctors and volunteers can effectively participate in health management. This can expand the coverage of rural health care and the number of participants.

Loudhailers in villages can also be used to inform rural residents of preventive and control measures and what to do if they are infected.

In other words, the epidemic response in rural areas should be tailored to the characteristics of rural areas, make good use of rural conditions and facilities, and be target-oriented.