JILIN, Jilin Province - Vice-Premier Sun Chunlan called for more decisive, precise, flexible and effective measures in regular epidemic prevention and control to avoid further spread of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Sun, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, made the remarks during an inspection tour in Northeast China's Jilin province starting on the night of May 13.

The inspectors stressed to speed up screening, testing, quarantine and treatment of COVID-19 cases and conduct thorough epidemiological investigations.

The inspection team underlined the need to immediately improve the nucleic acid testing capabilities and expand the testing range of people to ensure early detection, reporting, quarantine and treatment.

Sun urged enhanced treatment for the patients combining Chinese and Western medicine, strengthened epidemic prevention and control in key areas and venues, extra attention on key groups of vulnerable people and rigorous traffic control.

She also demanded open and transparent COVID-19 reports, timely response to the public concerns and better publicity on healthcare knowledge to improve people's awareness of self-protection against the virus.

Jilin City in Northeast China's Jilin province on Saturday removed Liu Shijun, the deputy director of the city's health commission, and four other officials from office.

Yue Xiaoyan, the director of Shulan City's health department, was another one of the officials removed.

A day earlier, Party chief of Shulan Li Pengfei was replaced with Zhang Jinghui, who is also vice-mayor of Jilin city, according to a decision by the CPC Jilin provincial committee Friday.

A cluster infection of the coronavirus was first reported in Shulan City earlier in the month that later led local officials to reimpose epidemic control measures to prevent the further spread of the virus.