One Week On, Focus Shifts Towards Preventing Disease

As hopes fade of finding more survivors, China is shifting its focus to protect the living from a second disaster: disease.

Epidemic prevention has become a priority for the authorities, who fear that disrupted water and power supplies could worsen sanitation, particularly in refugee camps and among those living in cramped, dirty conditions on the streets.

In the past few days, soldiers equipped with disinfectant spray guns have been dispatched to Yingxiu and other affected areas. Anyone returning is sprayed from head to toe as soon as they step off the boat, which is the principal means of transport to an area cut off by bridge collapses and landslides. Domestic TV footage has also shown disinfectant squads dousing ruined schools and residential blocks before rescue workers start looking for bodies.

Li Keqiang, the vice-premier, said that disease prevention should be given heavy weight in disaster relief. He called on medical workers to improve health monitoring so that the authorities could act quickly to prevent an epidemic.

"Preventing communicable disease outbreaks is the key public health issue now ... many people's wounds are open and they crowd together in makeshift tents for treatment. This easily leads to contagion," said Deng Neiqi, a cardiologist at Chengdu No 3 People's hospital. He said the main risk was intestinal disease. Health officials have also distributed a booklet outlining measures to prevent outbreaks of malaria, food poisoning and waterborne viruses.

There have been no reports of disease, but temporary public health units, each manned by half a dozen doctors and nurses, have been set up on streets in Dujiangyan, Yingxiu, Mianyang, Zipingpu and other affected areas.

According to the Xinhua news agency, 36,000 medical workers are helping to cope with the disaster. Two more quake survivors were freed yesterday. But officials also told Xinhua that more than 200 relief workers had been buried in mudflows over the past three days.

Meanwhile, there was panic in Chengdu late last night after a warning of an imminent 6-7 magnitude aftershock. A few hours later, an aftershock registering magnitude 5 was felt. By that time many people had bedded down in open areas.

But one resident said he feared that people in the areas worst hit by last week's quake were unaware of the warning after contacting a friend in Dujiangyan by landline. Mobile communications and power supply in the area are still patchy.