China's five flooded provinces have escaped outbreaks of disease and food poisoning, the Ministry of Health said Friday.

The provinces are East China's Anhui, Jiangxi and Jiangsu provinces and Central China's Hunan and Hubei provinces, which have been swamped by heavy rain and flooding this summer. Only two people have died from infectious diseases, falling victim to encephalitis B.

Several expert groups and millions of yuan have been sent by the Ministry of Health to the flood-hit areas since late May when water levels rose in these regions.

Since July 14, the five provinces have been required to report data on disease cases every day to the Ministry of Health.

The daily reports show the diseases that emerged in the flooded areas mostly consisted of infectious diarrhoea, hepatitis A, conjunctivitis and malaria.

Up to July 31, a total of 13,399 cases, including 405 cases of hepatitis A, 2,045 of diarrhoea, and 86 of encephalitis B, had been reported in the five provinces.

Hubei, Jiangxi and Hunan have reported 27, 26 and three cases respectively of schistosomiasis, a disease which needs more attention from local disease prevention and control centres, especially those in South, East and Central China, experts said.

(China Daily August 2, 2003)