Since the first public health team started working at the International Broadcast Centre on May 4, 2008, the Beijing Municipal Health Bureau (BMHB) has dispatched 421 health personnel to Olympic venues to carry out public health protection work relating to food, drinking water, public places, control of virus-carrying pests, health surveillance and monitoring, disease prevention and control, and so forth.

According to the tasks and needs of Olympic public health protection work, it is estimated that 421 public health personnel need to be dispatched to competition, non-competition and training venues during the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games. Among the 421 personnel, 223 are health supervisors, while the rest are workers at the Center for Disease Prevention and Control. They are all elites carefully selected by the BMHB under the principle of "comprehensive training, strict test, and optimal selection". During the Games, the health supervisors and personnel in charge of disease prevention and control will cooperate closely to ensure the safety of Olympic venues.

Those who are already working at Olympic venues have gone through intensive trainings and rigorous tests. In 2007, five large-scale trainings were held. They were clearly divided into several phases, each of which has an explicit objective and has close associations with neighboring phases. The first training was given to all health personnel; the second one only involved on-site workers for "Good Luck Beijing" events; the third one taught trainees how to guarantee food safety during "Good Luck Beijing" events; the fourth one was regarding fast on-site detection; and the fifth one was aimed at improving trainees' skills in epidemic investigation, on-site sampling, disinfection, management of close contacts of epidemic diseases, and so on. A test was given at the end of each phase of training, trainees who scored well were recommended to participate in health protection work at Olympic venues.

After entering Olympic venues, members of public health protection teams first coordinated with the venue operation teams to make sure their divisions of work can link up perfectly. This link-up job has been done already. The health protection teams'  responsibilities are listed as follows: preventive sanitary inspection for selection of locations for and design of the newly built, renovated, expanded and temporary venues; administrative approval of food safety, sanitation of drinking water and public places; monitoring of infectious diseases and virus-carrying pests; commitment to the sanitary standards of the drinking water, direct water supply, secondary water supply and bottled water; protection of the safety of drinking water and public locations (the centralized air conditioning system, open cooling tower, swimming pool water, indoor air quality, etc.); conducting overall inspection on various crowds to prevent fatal epidemic situation of infectious diseases; regular monitoring of the mosquitoes, flies, rats, and black beetles to keep the virus-carrying pests under effective control.

In addition, the BMHB newly established a technical support team made up of 71 experts who are playing a pivotal role in various specialties of public health protection and selected from all over the country. These experts, besides providing technical support for public health protection work during the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, will offer suggestions and solutions accordingly in case of a public health emergency. Their suggestions will form the basis of the BMHB's final solution to the incident.

The BMHB has created a steady triangle in terms of personnel coordination; or more precisely, this triangle is formed by the close cooperation between health supervisors and disease prevention staff at venues, the wonderful environment created by public health protection teams around the Olympic venues, and the great support from renowned experts. Thanks to every participant's effort, we have achieved seamless coordination of scientific management.