BEIJING -- A total of 650,000 Chinese grassroots medical workers have taken offline courses offered as part of a training program initiated by the National Health Commission (NHC), an official of the commission said on Friday.

Launched in 2018 and funded by the central budget, the program provides both online and offline courses, mainly for competent doctors in rural areas and general practitioners to improve their abilities, Fu Wei, an NHC official responsible for grassroots healthcare, said at a press conference.

"To improve the quality and effectiveness of the program, we selected 96 medical institutions to be training bases. These institutions are well-equipped, have strong teaching capabilities, and are suitable for learning and practice," Fu said.

The NHC refines the content of the courses every year in accordance with the country's major tasks to ensure the standards of the program, he added.

In response to the recent floods in parts of China and to facilitate the work of local medical workers, the NHC has begun providing online training sessions on post-disaster personal health care, the sanitization of living environments, and responses to common infectious diseases, Fu said.