A medical worker collects a swab sample from a resident for nucleic acid testing at a community in Shangpai Township of Feixi County, east China' Anhui Province, May 16, 2021. East China's Anhui Province on Saturday reported no new confirmed, suspected or asymptomatic COVID-19 cases, the provincial health commission said Sunday. (Xinhua/Liu Junxi)

 
A working team from China's joint prevention and control mechanism of the State Council arrived in East China's Anhui to tackle the local COVID-19 resurgence.

Anhui currently has seven confirmed cases and seven asymptomatic cases, Anhui provincial health authorities reported on Monday. 

Led by Sun Yang, deputy head of the newly established National Bureau of Disease Control and Prevention, the working team has visited local hospitals, the disease prevention and control center and epidemic-hit communities. 

It was the first time the newly established bureau, a vice ministerial-level body under the National Health Commission, made an expedition since it started operations last Thursday.

Sun said the working team shoulders the political responsibility of taming the epidemic in a quick and strict manner and creating a sound social environment for the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC). 

Previously, an expert team dispatched by the National Health Commission had also been to Anhui to deal with the epidemic. Zhang Ying, who has been hailed as a "female Sherlock Holmes" from Tianjin for her skills in tracing the places that COVID-19 patients have been to, was among the expert team.

The possibility of the outbreak spreading on a large scale has been basically ruled out, officials from Anhui told a press briefing on Sunday afternoon.

The genetic sequencing of patient specimens in Anhui found no mutations that caused high pathogenicity and high infectiousness. It does not belong to the highly infectious variant strains currently prevalent in India or South Africa, officials said. 

Global Times