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Epidemic control to enter national plan
By Li Jing (China Daily)
Updated: 2004-06-23 00:18
The prevention and control of infectious diseases is expected to be written
into the country's economic and social development plan for the first time.
The requirement comes from a revised version of the draft amendment to the
country's 1989 Law on the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases.
The draft amendment is being considered at the latest session of the Standing
Committee of the 10th National People's Congress (NPC) in a second round of
deliberation.
The newly added clause aims to ensure adequate financial support in the fight
against epidemics, regarded as a key to oiling the wheels of disease prevention
and control, said Hu Guangbao in a report to the legislature on Monday.
Hu, vice-director of the NPC's Law Committee, said the revised version also
lays a new obligation on the central government -- providing medical aid to
low-income groups and reduces or cancels their treatment charges.
According to the latest draft amendment, local governments above the county
level also have new tasks, such as ensuring special funds for contagious disease
prevention in townships, villages and urban communities.
Hu said the second version of the draft amendment, pooling the opinions of
lawmakers, experts and officials concerned, makes several major improvements
over the preliminary review made by the legislature in early April.
Besides enforcing financial support, the new draft amendment also underscores
the build-up of contagious disease prevention systems at the grass-roots level,
especially in the vast rural areas. They are another long-time Achilles' heel of
China's epidemic prevention system.
The governments at township levels are expected to assume more
responsibilities than before by organizing local efforts in disease control and
prevention, according to the draft amendment.
And the latest draft also extends its tentacles to the country's ground floor
-- residents' and villagers' committees, requiring them to mobilize people to
participate in the fight against epidemic.
Experts point out that the draft amendment, clarifying the duties of
governments at various levels in contagious disease prevention and control, will
help to improve the co-ordination between the central and local authorities such
as epidemic reporting.
The latest draft amendment also writes off the clause that the State Council
has the right to add or remove infectious diseases at Class One, the highest
rank of communicable disease.
Other revisions include specifying the non-discrimination rule of patients
suffering infectious diseases, protecting individual's privacy, and
strengthening virus controls in labs.
The country's lawmakers yesterday also deliberated on a revised draft law on
electronic signatures. It is aimed at giving online signatures the same legal
status as those penned on paper.
An online signature is an electronic signature that can be used to
authenticate the identity of the sender of a message or the signer of a
document.
Experts say the law on electronic signatures, if passed, is expected to
further regulate the use of online documents and electronic signatures in China.
As Internet trade requires a reliable third party to identify the signers,
the credibility of the online certifying organizations is significant for
transaction security.
The draft law stipulates that institutions who want to provide identification
services for online signers need to get the nod from related government
organizations.
Meanwhile, the latest version changed the retention period for electronic
signatures to five years from the previous two.
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