Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Monday said the medical treatment and epidemic prevention tasks in the quake regions were still tough and no relaxation would be allowed.

Presiding over a quake relief meeting in Beijing, Wen urged bolstering the treatment of the injured to minimize fatalities and disability.

He urged local governments to resume as soon as possible the prevention and control of endemics and health supervision systems, strengthening epidemic surveillance and reporting, and enhancing the supervision of drinking water and food safety.

He said that normal medical services should also be restored as soon as possible to guarantee the basic medical need of quake victims.

Under concerted efforts from relevant sides, the epidemic prevention work was progressing in a forceful, orderly and effective way, Wen said. All affected people in all counties, towns, villages and temporary settlements had been covered.

No concentrated epidemic outbreaks or emergent public health incidents had been reported, according to the meeting.

The 8.0-magnitude earthquake rocked the southwestern Sichuan Province and neighboring regions, including the northwestern Gansu and Shaanxi provinces on May 12. As of Monday noon, it had taken 69,142 lives, injured 374,065 people, left 17,551 missing and 46.25 million affected.

The meeting was also briefed on the quake relief work in Gansu and Shaanxi, which also suffered great losses.

It directed the two provinces to resume production in the affected areas at the earliest date possible and to rehabilitate the infrastructure.

The central government would provide support in policies, capital and material, the meeting said.

(Xinhua News Agency June 10, 2008)