Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang urged vaccine companies to step up the preparation work for vaccine production after the first domestic A/H1N1 influenza case was confirmed in southern Guangdong Province Friday.

Li made the remarks during his inspection in the Sinovac, the only one company in the country that was qualified to produce vaccines for a pandemic flu Friday afternoon.

Yin Hongzhang, a senior official with the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA), told Xinhua earlier this week that the country had set up a green channel between the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Chinese drug makers which would enable the companies to start vaccine manufacturing immediately after receiving samples of the vaccine strain.

"Meanwhile, we should seize the time to produce more anti-virus medicines, quarantine equipment, materials and facilities for medical treatment to cope with emergency," Li Keqiang said.

He urged related departments to continue strict border quarantine check to prevent imported cases and close supervision on both urban and rural areas.

He warned experts to prepare for a protracted fight against the disease given the fact that China has a large population, especially a large migrant population, inadequate public health resources and weak capability to prevent and control diseases in rural areas.

"Further efforts are needed to perfect preventive measures and improve grassroots medical services systems in urban and rural areas," Li said. He also called for efforts to publicize knowledge on disease prevention and educate the public to be aware of disease prevention.

Li told the public not to panic about the disease despite the first domestic infection case. "As worldwide experiences show, the flu can still be controlled, prevented and cured," he added.

"Since the A/H1N1 epidemic first broke out overseas one month ago, our prevention work has proven to be effective and has been carried out in an orderly manner," said Li when he visited a lab for biological safety under the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences.

As of Friday, 21 confirmed cases involve eight provinces and municipalities of the Chinese mainland: Six in Guangdong, five in Beijing, four in Shanghai, two in Fujian, and one each in Hunan, Shandong, Sichuan and Zhejiang. Seven of them had recovered and were discharged from hospitals.

(Xinhua News Agency May 30, 2009)