Military-civilian cooperative emergency response to infectious disease prevention and control in China

Abstract

In recent years, the incidence of severe infectious diseases has increased, and the number of emerging infectious diseases continues to increase. The Chinese government and military forces have paid a great deal of attention to infectious disease prevention and control, and using military-civilian cooperation, they have successfully prevented numerous severe epidemic situations, such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), influenza A (H1N1), avian influenza H5N1 and H7N9, and Ebola hemorrhagic fever, while actively maintained public health, economic development, and national construction. This paper focuses on the mechanisms of the military-cooperative emergency response to infectious diseases--the joint working mechanism, the information-sharing mechanism, the research collaboration mechanism, and the joint disposal mechanism--and presents a sorted summary of the practices and experiences of cooperative emergency responses to infectious diseases. In the future, the Chinese military and the civilian sector will further strengthen the cooperative joint command system and emergency rescue force and will reinforce their collaborative information-sharing platform and technical equipment system to further improve military-civilian collaborative emergency infectious diseases disposal, advance the level of infectious disease prevention and control, and maintain public health.

Strategy and technology to prevent hospital-acquired infections: Lessons from SARS, Ebola, and MERS in Asia and West Africa

“…SARS causes fever, cough, serious lung problems, and even death. In 2002-2003, SARS outbreaks affected China and other Asian countries, and then spread to Canada [11,12]. Worldwide, 20% of the laboratory-confirmed SARS patients were HCWs, who had a fatality rate of 40% [13].…”

A Study on the Mechanism and Strategy of Cross-Regional Emergency Cooperation for Natural Disasters in China—Based on the Perspective of Evolutionary Game Theory

“…The differences between organizational cooperation and institutional provisions in emergency response and emergency preparedness have also been compared. From the perspective of the participants in emergency cooperation, the coordination and interaction of emergency management in China occurs between government departments [ 22 ], as well as between government and social organizations and between government and military [ 23 ]. To be specific, the intergovernmental emergency cooperation mode includes cooperation among local central governments, cooperation among different local governments, cooperation among different government departments, and cooperation among trans-central governments [ 24 ].…”

Managing health disasters and Civil–Military Cooperation: A case of COVID-19 in Pakistan

“…From the outbreak of Avian Influenza in China to the epidemics of Ebola in the African continent and SARS and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in China and South-East Asia, we have witnessed effective prevention and management of infectious diseases (i.e. health emergencies) through CIMIC mobilisation (via clusters of involved suborganisations) (Michaud et al 2019;Ma et al 2016). This programmed approach has provided states with yet another opportunity to enhance CIMIC in a wide range of areas, such as post-conflict reconstruction, rehabilitation, counterterrorism, research cooperation, etc.…”

“…(e.g. Licina, Burkle & Kamradt Scott 2019;Ma et al 2016;Watterson & Kamradt-Schott 2015). Rosén (2009) believed that we are witnessing a third generation of CIMIC where the involved complex web of civil and military components are observing new patterns of relationship (Brooks 2019;Cook & Yogendran 2020).…”