BEIJING -- China intends to make traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) play a greater role in infectious disease prevention, treatment and public health response, according to a newly-unveiled government plan.

The TCM development plan for the 14th Five-Year period (2021-2025) hails the important contribution made by TCM to COVID-19 control and treatment and proposes systematic arrangements that encourage the combination of Chinese and Western medicine and enhance TCM treatment capacity.

The expertise of major TCM hospitals will be enlisted to build national TCM centers for epidemic prevention and treatment in all provincial-level regions, the development plan stated.

It added that all major public TCM hospitals and major public hospitals of integrated Chinese and Western medicine must have fever clinics, and beef up capacity in departments of infectious diseases, emergency treatment, severe illnesses, respiratory diseases, and clinical laboratories.