The hygiene supervision and control authorities have a close relationship with every consumer, and involve diet, health care, medical treatment, and many other aspects.

The main duties of the hygiene supervision and control authorities cover:

1. Supervising food hygiene:

The health and epidemic prevention stations and the food hygiene supervision and inspection offices above the county level are the food hygiene supervision agencies with the duties of providing monitoring, inspection and technical guidance for food hygiene, to contribute to the training of personnel for food production and marketing and to supervise the medical examination of such personnel, to provide appraisals of food hygiene and publicize the existing situation in food hygiene, to conduct hygiene inspections of sites selected or designs made for construction, extension or renovation projects of enterprises engaged in food production or marketing and participate in the inspection and acceptance of finished projects, to undertake the investigation of accidents involving food poisoning or food contamination and take necessary control measures, and to make supervision and inspection rounds to see whether any act is committed against the Food Hygiene Law of the People's Republic of China.

2. Supervising and controlling the production and operation of drugs:

The administrative departments of health above the county level shall perform this duty in order to ensure the quality of drugs, enhance the efficacy of drugs, guarantee safe drug use, and safeguard the physical health of consumers. They shall be responsible for supervising and controlling the production and operation of drugs and medicaments of medical organizations, reviewing and ratifying drugs and issuing the standards for drugs, certifying drugs and raising varieties of the to-be-eliminated drugs, controlling narcotic drugs, psychotropic drugs, poisons and radioactive drugs, banning spurious drugs and inferior drugs, controlling the quality of the import and export drugs, and investigating and punishing any and all acts violating the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Administration of Drugs.