Disease control teams dispatched to Hengzhou, Binyang after flooding

Health authorities in Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, have stepped up post-flood epidemic prevention efforts by deploying hundreds of disease control workers and thousands of sanitation personnel to affected areas as authorities work to prevent disease outbreaks following severe flooding triggered by Typhoon Maysak.

At a flood control news briefing on Thursday, Zeng Yuanyi, deputy director of Nanning's health commission, warned that flood-affected areas face an elevated risk of infectious diarrhea, typhoid, influenza, allergic reactions, and other illnesses resulting from contaminated water, poor sanitation, and increased mosquito populations.

Disease prevention teams were dispatched to disaster-hit areas immediately after flooding began on Monday. On Wednesday, health authorities sent more than 300 additional professionals to Yunbiao and Xiaoyi towns in Hengzhou, as well as Gantang town in Binyang county, to carry out disease surveillance, environmental disinfection, and other epidemic prevention work.

Authorities have also procured disinfectants and testing reagents for flood-related infectious diseases to support large-scale sanitation work once floodwaters recede, she said.

Since Monday, the health commission has coordinated with the city's landscaping and sanitation authorities to deploy more than 4,200 sanitation workers and over 1,300 vehicle trips to remove silt, clear garbage, and restore environmental hygiene in affected areas.

Zeng said health authorities would continue monitoring drinking water quality, infectious disease symptoms, and environmental sanitation to minimize public health risks and prevent major disease outbreaks after the disaster.

The broader infectious disease situation across flood-hit areas of Guangxi remains stable, according to the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Jiang Lina, deputy director of the institute for infectious disease prevention and control under the regional CDC, said current surveillance has detected no abnormal disease trends. Authorities have activated an emergency disease surveillance system that includes daily risk assessments, symptom monitoring at temporary medical stations and evacuation sites, frontline health inspections, and enhanced monitoring of drinking water quality and mosquitoes and other disease-carrying vectors to enable early detection and rapid response to potential outbreaks.