Ⅰ. Summary
　　
In the 30th week of 2008 (from July 28 to August 3), 3,614 cases of 16 kinds of legally defined infectious diseases and five dead cases (hepatitis B) have been reported. Among them, there are 11 types totaling 1,503 cases of Type B infectious diseases, up 9.07％ over last week and down 39.27％ over last year. The top five diseases according to the reported cases are: dysentery (790 cases), tuberculosis (292 cases), hepatitis B (146 cases), syphilis (85 cases) and gonorrhea (52 cases); 2, 111 cases of five kinds of Type C infectious diseases were reported, down 13.48％ over last week and down 36.42％ over last year. Moreover, infectious diarrhea, hand-foot-mouth disease, epidemic parotitis, urticaria and acute hemorrhagic conjunctivitis take up 58.4% of the total number of legally defined infectious diseases, down 36.42% over last year.

II. Analysis of the Major Epidemics

(1) Hand-foot-mouth disease
This week 422 cases have been reported, down 36.92% over last week. The top five districts and counties with the most reported cases are: Fengtai, Chaoyang, Haidian, Tongzhou, and Fangshan, accounting for 57.35% of the total. Those infected are mainly scattered-living children and kindergarten kids, who take up 94.55% of all infected patients.

(2) Diarrhea
This week 790 cases have been reported throughout the city, up 9.12% over last week and down 59.47% over last year. The top five districts and counties with the most reported cases are: Chaoyang, Fengtai, Haidian, Daxing, and Changping, accounting for 62.15% of the total. Those infected are mostly scattered-living children, students, cadres, housework personnel and retirees, accounting for 72.66% of the total reported cases.

Ⅲ. Key Notes

From May, 2008, an outbreak of intestinal typhoid was reported in Turkmenistan. The epidemic was caused by drinking water contaminated with Salmonella typhi after the water pipe cracked due to the extremely low temperature. So far, this disease has broken out in Lebap province and spread to the country’s capital, where dozens of intestinal typhoid cases have been reported. In order to prevent intestinal typhoid from spreading into China and protect the safety of Chinese citizens who are going to the aforementioned regions, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of the P.R.C. published the Warnings on Preventing Intestinal Typhoid Spreading from Turkmenistan to China on July 28.

Intestinal infectious diseases, such as diarrhea, typhoid, hepatitis A, etc, are rampant in summer. Therefore, health authorities at all levels must strengthen their prevention and surveillance against intestinal infectious diseases and take timely action to detect, treat and segregate infected patients so that the diseases can be prevented from escalating to epidemics. As for citizens, they should be careful with food hygiene and safety, wash hands before meals, avoid drinking unboiled water and eating rotten food, warm up the leftovers before eating them, separate raw ingredients from cooked food, and prevent food from flies and dust.