Lu Zhangong, vice-chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee, led a team to inspect the development progress of the national public health protection system in Central China's Hubei province and Southwest China's Chongqing municipality between May 17 and 20. 

The team, consisting of members of the Committee on Education, Science, Health and Sport of the CPPCC National Committee, visited hospitals, rural medical stations, disease prevention and control centers, medical schools and ecological reservation projects during the trip. 

They also held meetings with representatives from medical institutions and colleges, community service centers, as well as pharmaceutical enterprises, listening to their feedback and suggestions. 

Team members spoke highly of the achievements of Hubei and Chongqing in advancing public health reform. They called for increased efforts to implement the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) for National Economic and Social Development and the Long-Range Objectives Through the Year 2035, and to build a strong public health system by strengthening weak links and closing loopholes in the process. 

They also called for further clarifying the rights, responsibilities and interests of relevant departments to optimize the public health protection system and deepen the reform of the disease control system. 

They urged innovations to the cooperative infectious disease treatment and prevention mechanism, enhancing the role of medical institutions in monitoring such diseases and strengthening the initial diagnosis responsibility system. 

It is also necessary to establish an accommodative emergency medical treatment system, strengthen the construction of specialized infectious disease hospitals and infection departments at general hospitals, improve grassroots medical institutions' capabilities for disease prevention, and improve the cultivation and utilization of public health talents, they said.