sharon sanders
Editor-in-Chief & President
China-Russia cross-border epidemic prevention drill
Protecting border public health security
September 3, 2026, 12:37:20
Source: Heilongjiang Daily
A joint emergency drill for cross-border infectious disease outbreaks between China and Russia in 2026 was recently held in Fuyuan City. The event was jointly organized by the Heilongjiang Provincial Bureau of Disease Control and Prevention, the Provincial Health Commission, the Provincial Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and the disease control bureaus of Liaoning and Jilin provinces.
Experts from the Federal Service for Supervision of Consumer Rights Protection and Human Welfare of the Russian Federation and public health experts from the three Far Eastern frontier regions participated in the drill and consultation. At the drill, officials from dozens of provincial departments and border city health and disease control systems, including the Provincial Foreign Affairs Office, the Provincial Public Security Department, Harbin Customs, and the Northern Theater Command Disease Control Center, as well as over 300 members and more than 40 emergency equipment vehicles from 19 professional health emergency teams in Northeast China, participated in the exercise.
This exercise aimed to promote the implementation of the "Cooperation Agreement on the Prevention of Human Infectious Diseases" signed between our province and the Khabarovsk Krai, Amur Oblast, and Primorsky Krai of Russia, to conduct a realistic test of the cross-border infectious disease outbreak response mechanism, and to enhance the emergency response capabilities of our province's medical and health emergency rescue teams in dealing with emerging infectious disease outbreaks and floods. At the exercise site, through a full-scale, realistic cross-border, cross-regional, and cross-departmental drill, the exercise comprehensively tested the bilateral public health emergency response mechanism between China and Russia and the collaborative operational capabilities of the three northeastern provinces, strengthening the public health security defense line in northern my country and deepening practical cooperation between China and Russia in the field of health.
This exercise innovatively adopted a practical mode that combined testing and demonstration, abandoning formalistic procedures and focusing on high-incidence, sudden, and high-risk public health risks at the border. It precisely set up three core scenarios: joint cross-border emergency response to emerging tick-borne diseases, joint cross-border response to imported bubonic plague outbreaks, and post-flood health and epidemic prevention and emergency medical rescue.
In the response to a newly emerging tick-borne disease, the Heihe team accurately monitored ticks in the wild, identified high-risk areas, and the Jixi disinfection team immediately carried out standardized disinfection operations across the entire area. Staff quickly sent samples for testing, and after the provincial CDC team completed nucleic acid testing, metagenomic sequencing was initiated to trace the source of the unknown pathogen.
In the scenario of imported bubonic plague, the drill teams strictly implemented the highest biosafety standards. The Shuangyashan City CDC team completed the standardized sealing, disinfection, and transportation of high-risk specimens; the Mudanjiang City CDC team conducted comprehensive terminal disinfection of the outbreak site; and the Harbin City CDC team simultaneously carried out vector control, precisely interrupting the transmission chain.
During the joint risk assessment phase, experts from our province's disease control and prevention department and Russian experts conducted a simulated consultation on cross-border infectious disease outbreaks, including information sharing, joint risk assessment, and the formulation of prevention and control measures. This provided valuable experience for future collaborative approaches to jointly manage infectious disease outbreaks.
During the exercise, the Heilongjiang Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, in conjunction with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, simultaneously held an academic exchange meeting on the surveillance of zoonotic diseases in Northeast China and the Russian Far East. At the meeting, disease control experts and research personnel from both China and Russia conducted in-depth exchanges and discussions on core areas such as the surveillance and early warning of zoonotic diseases in border areas, pathogen identification, epidemic assessment, emergency response, and technological innovation. They shared their respective prevention and control experiences and cutting-edge technologies, and precisely addressed the pain points and difficulties in disease prevention and control along the China-Russia border.
This academic exchange broke away from the previous single-exercise cooperation model, promoting bilateral public health cooperation from practical exercises to a comprehensive extension of academic co-construction, technology sharing, and experience exchange. It also helped Sino-Russian border disease prevention and control cooperation shift from sporadic exchanges to normalized, institutionalized, and in-depth collaboration, laying a solid technical and talent foundation for building a normalized cross-border disease monitoring and prevention system.
Fang Qingwei, Deputy Director of the Provincial Health Commission and Director of the Disease Control Bureau, stated that in recent years, relying on the framework of China-Russia bilateral health cooperation, our province has continuously improved the cross-border joint prevention and control mechanism, and routinely carried out epidemic information sharing, joint monitoring, academic exchanges, and practical drills, forming a rapid response and coordinated cross-border prevention and control pattern. This drill precisely addressed shortcomings in cross-border information sharing and cross-regional team coordination, further improving the cross-border, cross-departmental, and cross-regional emergency response system. It will undoubtedly promote China-Russia bilateral public health cooperation and the emergency response capabilities of Northeast China to a new level, empowering and enhancing the protection of border residents' health, contributing to the construction of a Healthy China, and building a global community of health for all.
"This comprehensive, full-process practical exercise effectively strengthened the practical skills of grassroots disease control team members, fully tested the scientific nature, standardization, and operability of emergency plans at all levels, and significantly improved the local disease control team's ability to respond to cross-border infectious disease outbreaks and secondary public health risks from natural disasters, providing a solid guarantee for building a robust local and border public health security defense line on a regular basis," said Qin Ying, Party Secretary and Director of the Harbin Municipal Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
This joint emergency drill for cross-border infectious disease outbreaks between China and Russia is a vivid example of implementing the consensus reached on border public health security cooperation between the two countries, a concentrated demonstration of the cross-regional health emergency response capabilities of the three northeastern provinces, and a pragmatic embodiment of the good-neighborly friendship and mutual assistance between China and Russia. The entire drill closely followed actual border control practices, focused on core risks, and addressed shortcomings in response, further solidifying the long-term joint prevention and control mechanism for information sharing, joint monitoring, and coordinated response between China and Russia. This marks a new stage in the comprehensive implementation of the mechanism for infectious disease prevention and control along the China-Russia border.
zhttps://www.hljnews.cn/kjjk/content/2026-09/03/content_906759.html
Protecting border public health security
September 3, 2026, 12:37:20
Source: Heilongjiang Daily
A joint emergency drill for cross-border infectious disease outbreaks between China and Russia in 2026 was recently held in Fuyuan City. The event was jointly organized by the Heilongjiang Provincial Bureau of Disease Control and Prevention, the Provincial Health Commission, the Provincial Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and the disease control bureaus of Liaoning and Jilin provinces.
Experts from the Federal Service for Supervision of Consumer Rights Protection and Human Welfare of the Russian Federation and public health experts from the three Far Eastern frontier regions participated in the drill and consultation. At the drill, officials from dozens of provincial departments and border city health and disease control systems, including the Provincial Foreign Affairs Office, the Provincial Public Security Department, Harbin Customs, and the Northern Theater Command Disease Control Center, as well as over 300 members and more than 40 emergency equipment vehicles from 19 professional health emergency teams in Northeast China, participated in the exercise.
This exercise aimed to promote the implementation of the "Cooperation Agreement on the Prevention of Human Infectious Diseases" signed between our province and the Khabarovsk Krai, Amur Oblast, and Primorsky Krai of Russia, to conduct a realistic test of the cross-border infectious disease outbreak response mechanism, and to enhance the emergency response capabilities of our province's medical and health emergency rescue teams in dealing with emerging infectious disease outbreaks and floods. At the exercise site, through a full-scale, realistic cross-border, cross-regional, and cross-departmental drill, the exercise comprehensively tested the bilateral public health emergency response mechanism between China and Russia and the collaborative operational capabilities of the three northeastern provinces, strengthening the public health security defense line in northern my country and deepening practical cooperation between China and Russia in the field of health.
This exercise innovatively adopted a practical mode that combined testing and demonstration, abandoning formalistic procedures and focusing on high-incidence, sudden, and high-risk public health risks at the border. It precisely set up three core scenarios: joint cross-border emergency response to emerging tick-borne diseases, joint cross-border response to imported bubonic plague outbreaks, and post-flood health and epidemic prevention and emergency medical rescue.
In the response to a newly emerging tick-borne disease, the Heihe team accurately monitored ticks in the wild, identified high-risk areas, and the Jixi disinfection team immediately carried out standardized disinfection operations across the entire area. Staff quickly sent samples for testing, and after the provincial CDC team completed nucleic acid testing, metagenomic sequencing was initiated to trace the source of the unknown pathogen.
In the scenario of imported bubonic plague, the drill teams strictly implemented the highest biosafety standards. The Shuangyashan City CDC team completed the standardized sealing, disinfection, and transportation of high-risk specimens; the Mudanjiang City CDC team conducted comprehensive terminal disinfection of the outbreak site; and the Harbin City CDC team simultaneously carried out vector control, precisely interrupting the transmission chain.
During the joint risk assessment phase, experts from our province's disease control and prevention department and Russian experts conducted a simulated consultation on cross-border infectious disease outbreaks, including information sharing, joint risk assessment, and the formulation of prevention and control measures. This provided valuable experience for future collaborative approaches to jointly manage infectious disease outbreaks.
During the exercise, the Heilongjiang Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, in conjunction with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, simultaneously held an academic exchange meeting on the surveillance of zoonotic diseases in Northeast China and the Russian Far East. At the meeting, disease control experts and research personnel from both China and Russia conducted in-depth exchanges and discussions on core areas such as the surveillance and early warning of zoonotic diseases in border areas, pathogen identification, epidemic assessment, emergency response, and technological innovation. They shared their respective prevention and control experiences and cutting-edge technologies, and precisely addressed the pain points and difficulties in disease prevention and control along the China-Russia border.
This academic exchange broke away from the previous single-exercise cooperation model, promoting bilateral public health cooperation from practical exercises to a comprehensive extension of academic co-construction, technology sharing, and experience exchange. It also helped Sino-Russian border disease prevention and control cooperation shift from sporadic exchanges to normalized, institutionalized, and in-depth collaboration, laying a solid technical and talent foundation for building a normalized cross-border disease monitoring and prevention system.
Fang Qingwei, Deputy Director of the Provincial Health Commission and Director of the Disease Control Bureau, stated that in recent years, relying on the framework of China-Russia bilateral health cooperation, our province has continuously improved the cross-border joint prevention and control mechanism, and routinely carried out epidemic information sharing, joint monitoring, academic exchanges, and practical drills, forming a rapid response and coordinated cross-border prevention and control pattern. This drill precisely addressed shortcomings in cross-border information sharing and cross-regional team coordination, further improving the cross-border, cross-departmental, and cross-regional emergency response system. It will undoubtedly promote China-Russia bilateral public health cooperation and the emergency response capabilities of Northeast China to a new level, empowering and enhancing the protection of border residents' health, contributing to the construction of a Healthy China, and building a global community of health for all.
"This comprehensive, full-process practical exercise effectively strengthened the practical skills of grassroots disease control team members, fully tested the scientific nature, standardization, and operability of emergency plans at all levels, and significantly improved the local disease control team's ability to respond to cross-border infectious disease outbreaks and secondary public health risks from natural disasters, providing a solid guarantee for building a robust local and border public health security defense line on a regular basis," said Qin Ying, Party Secretary and Director of the Harbin Municipal Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
This joint emergency drill for cross-border infectious disease outbreaks between China and Russia is a vivid example of implementing the consensus reached on border public health security cooperation between the two countries, a concentrated demonstration of the cross-regional health emergency response capabilities of the three northeastern provinces, and a pragmatic embodiment of the good-neighborly friendship and mutual assistance between China and Russia. The entire drill closely followed actual border control practices, focused on core risks, and addressed shortcomings in response, further solidifying the long-term joint prevention and control mechanism for information sharing, joint monitoring, and coordinated response between China and Russia. This marks a new stage in the comprehensive implementation of the mechanism for infectious disease prevention and control along the China-Russia border.
zhttps://www.hljnews.cn/kjjk/content/2026-09/03/content_906759.html