China's top health authority on Monday instructed all medical institutions at the grassroots level to test patients who have shown symptoms of fever for the novel coronavirus.
Primary care institutions that can't carry out nucleic acid tests should team up with other institutions or third-party testing agencies, according to a notice released on the website of the National Health Commission.
The notice is aimed at improving the ability of grassroots medical institutions to detect the virus early, issue warnings and standardize the operations of fever clinics, according to the commission.
Fever clinics have played a significant role in diagnosing and isolating sporadic new COVID-19 infections as local transmissions of the virus have been promptly put under control in China, according to health officials.
The document also requires grassroots medical institutions to report cases where diagnoses are unclear but the risk of having contracted infectious illnesses cannot be ruled out. Such patients should be isolated immediately, and their discharges from the center will need authorization.
Patients who display severe COVID-19 symptoms or show signs of rapidly worsening will be transferred to hospitals that can provide adequate treatment in a timely manner, it added.
