The World Health Organization (WHO) is rushing additional medical supplies to China's earthquake-hit areas, said the UN agency's regional office in Manila on Thursday.

The supplies will be able to treat 130,000 people, WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific said in a press release.

WHO is also sending an expert team to collaborate with the Chinese government on rebuilding its health infrastructure following the devastating May 12 earthquake in the country's southwestern province of Sichuan.

WHO will provide equipment to ensure clean drinking water and proper sanitation, which is vital for controlling any outbreak and spread of communicable diseases such as diarrhoea. This includes 5, 000 chlorine disinfection tablets, drinking-water treatment units and mobile toilets, the organization said.

WHO are now sending four interagency emergency health kits to the quake-affected areas of Sichuan Province. Each kit provides sufficient essential medicines and supplies to treat 30,000 people for one month. Contained in the kits are medicines for common diseases and medical devices for primary health care workers.

A WHO team of experts will be dispatched shortly to China to support government efforts to reconstruct health care services severely impaired and damaged by the 8.0-magnitude earthquake.

"WHO has already identified that the key health issue in the earthquake's aftermath is to prevent and control communicable disease outbreaks," said Dr. Eric Laroche, Assistant Director- General for WHO's Health Action in Crises cluster. But the longer- term challenge is how to best rebuild its damaged health infrastructure, the doctor added.

Dr Hans Troedsson, WHO's representative to China, said the expert team would include a specialist in constructing appropriate health systems, as well as an epidemiologist to assist in disease surveillance control.

"We know health facilities in and around the epicenter of the earthquake were severely affected by the disaster," Dr. Troedsson said. "WHO wants to support Chinese efforts to restore fully its hospitals, clinics and other health facilities to ensure they are strong enough to withstand future natural disasters and provide healthcare in the wake of others."

The United Nations has contributed US$8 million from its Central Emergency Relief Fund to the Chinese government, and UN agencies are intensifying support to authorities there to mobilize relief efforts.

(Xinhua News Agency May 23, 2008)