BEIJING -- President Xi Jinping on Friday stressed improving the mechanism for major epidemic prevention and control and the national public health emergency management system.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, specified the requirements at the 12th meeting of the central committee for deepening overall reform, which he chairs.

Noting that safeguarding people's life and health is a major mission of the Party in governing the country, Xi stressed the need to strengthen areas of weakness and close the loopholes exposed in the current epidemic.