South China's Guangdong province is promoting public bidding for the construction of a public health medical center for infectious diseases, a senior health official said on Tuesday.

Zhu Hong, director of Guangdong Provincial Health Commission, said the new medical center has been chosen to be built in Haixinsha island in Machong township in Dongguan city, one of the major production bases in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

"Now the feasible study for the medical center has been completed," Zhu said when answering questions from local deputies of the People's Congress.

" In the coming months, relevant departments will accelerate the construction of the center, strengthen the cooperation with high-level hospitals and medical colleges to build a high-level medical center for infectious diseases and help fill the gap in the training base for public health emergencies and disaster rescue in the Greater Bay Area," said Zhu.

The new center will be able to play an important role in strengthening the capacity-building of preventing and controlling infectious diseases, especially to improve the first diagnosis, detection, prevention, control and response capacity of major infectious diseases in the province which has a population of more than 118 million, he said.

Meanwhile, in 77 public hospitals in 57 counties across the province, the construction of special changeable areas of infectious diseases will be completed before the end of the year. It will have a total of 5,623 inpatient beds.

The special areas of infectious diseases, which can also be used as general wards, can convert into special isolated wards when there is an outbreak of infectious diseases, such as COVID-19, said the Zhu.

The construction of the new medical center and the changeable infectious disease areas in local hospitals will help the province in its capacity to handle public health emergencies in the years to come, he added. Guangdong, one of the country's economic powerhouses, has the country's largest population of migrant workers.