The municipal government of Shangqiu in Central China's Henan Province has commissioned a company to conduct the procurement for the construction of a large-scale Fangcang hospital, a type of makeshift field hospital that accepts COVID-19-infected patients during the epidemic, according to the government's website.

The announcement comes after the National Health Commission (NHC) recently suggested that Chinese cities should build makeshift hospitals as a preparation for regular COVID-19 outbreak prevention and control.

If this hospital is successfully built, it will be used permanently, staff from the Shangqiu City Epidemic Prevention and Control Command Office told media on Thursday. This medical facility was built next to a large hospital and is the first large quarantine site in the area.

In a meeting on Wednesday afternoon about the city's COVID-19 outbreak prevention and control, Shangqiu's Mayor, Bai Xiangyang, said that Shangqiu should push forward with the construction of outbreak prevention and control capabilities, including further improving nucleic acid testing, strengthening the construction of permanent nucleic acid testing sites, training more nucleic acid testing teams, accelerating the construction of quarantine sites, and preparing a full team of quarantine service personnel.

Earlier, Ma Xiaowei, director of the NHC, said in an article published on Monday in the Communist Party of China Central Committee's flagship magazine, Qiushi Journal, that China plans to build permanent facilities and more COVID-19 test sites to enhance the country's ability to prevent and control the coronavirus at the early stage of infection.

On Wednesday, the head of Shanghai's central quarantine treatment team, Chen Erzhen, suggested that a complete set of emergency coordination mechanisms of the makeshift hospitals should be included in the city's security system in the future.