In preparation for the Olympics next year, Beijing has reserved many hospital beds for emergency use to save the day in the event of an infectious outbreak.
Beijing has planned to keep at least 6,350 beds and 144 hospitals ready by August 2008, to combat highly infectious diseases like bird flu and SARS.China has been putting its best foot forward to curb the spread of bird flu. As a preventive measure, China took the intelligent step of vaccinating poultry in a large scale to prevent bird flu outbreaks during spring. Since 2003, there have been 24 human cases of the H5N1 virus; 15 have lost their lives to the disease.
Source-Medindia
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