Construction of the national medical center for major public health incidents is underway at East Lake High-tech Development Zone (Optics Valley of China) in Wuhan, the capital of Central China's Hubei province. It will be completed in June next year, according to local media reports.

Based at Tongji Hospital, the medical center was approved by the National Health Commission in April last year and started construction at the hospital's Optics Valley branch in July.

It is being established to improve the country's ability to deal with emerging and emergent infectious diseases and comprehensively improve the country's response to major public health incidents.

It is the first national-level medical center set up outside Beijing and Shanghai, and is also the country's sixth national medical center.

The construction of a medical treatment facility dedicated to difficult and critical diseases is currently underway, with a total construction area of 105,000 square meters. It is expected that the main structure will be capped at the end of June this year and completed in June next year.

Soon, the center will also apply to establish a national emergency medical rescue team for five major categories: infectious diseases, natural disasters, nuclear radiation, toxic diseases and unexplained diseases. The goal is to build a professional emergency rescue team to enhance medical care during public health incidents.