Ningxia promotes prevention and treatment of COVID-19 in rural areas

Ningxia has strengthened the prevention and control of COVID-19 in rural areas, making efforts to coordinate medical resource preparations, promoted the vaccination and health management of key groups of people, strengthened the expansion of fever clinics, reserves of medical personnel, equipment, drugs and antigen reagents, improved its medical treatment capacity, and steadily promoted its epidemic response and treatment capabilities.

As of December 28, a total of 710,184 permanent residents aged 65 and above have been investigated in Ningxia, among which, 73,761 people were identified as key groups, and 127,373 as secondary key groups. Based on these statistics, Ningxia has provided corresponding health services for different groups of people in accordance with the COVID-19 Health Service Plan for Key Groups.

Relying on the 2,166 family physician service teams in the region, Ningxia has included all key groups of people into the family physician management, informing them of the physician service phone number, implementing vaccinations, and providing health education, health monitoring, medication guidance, health assessments, assistance in referrals and other health services.

Three counties and districts have distributed more than 10,000 "health kits", containing health education materials, thermometers, masks, antigen detection reagents, medicines and other items to key populations free of charge. As of December 30, the completion rate of the vaccination for people aged 60-79 and over 80 in the region had reached 99.77% and 91.14% respectively.

Ningxia has applied a remote and artificial intelligence auxiliary diagnosis and treatment system, established an orderly hierarchical diagnosis and referral connection network, and formed an effective urban-rural linkage mechanism for medical services. 937 medical personnel from medical institutions at or above the second level have been selected to support rural areas. At the same time, medical service teams at the county level have been organized to improve the diagnosis and treatment service capacity of grass-roots medical institutions through expert visits and professional personnel stationed at service sites.