To prevent the SARS epidemic from spreading to the vast stretches of rural China, one difficulty facing the government is to monitor its roving migrant population. With the active participation of the State Population and Family Planning Commission, the whereabouts of a farmer, once he leaves home, is now traceable thanks to a new information network.

The commission has recently opened a special SARS data reporting network within its sector, which enables fresh data on trans-provincial floating populations every three days. The comprehensive and accurate changing data and analytic reports provided by the network will give government departments at various levels strong support for arranging SARS work in rural areas. Since the information collection and distribution platform went into operation on May 13, a total of 2,606 counties in the country have begun to submit investigation data on trans-provincial migrant populations directly to the network, accounting for 96 percent of the counties required to make such reports (Tibet is excluded).

How then was the information system established? According to a responsible official from the commission, this special network was developed within a short period of time, based on previous information systems on women of childbearing age.

The official said that the family planning sector had set up a rather complete service network across the country. As an integral part of the birth control endeavor in China, the network is composed of 600,000 government officials working in the family planning sector, 1.4 million special family planning workers at village level, and 83 million of members of the population and family planning associations.

At the present critical moment in the prevention of the SARS epidemic from spreading to rural areas and among the rural population, the State Population and Family Planning Commission launched the network, aiming to make full use of the sector's advantages in organizational setup, network and information.

Since the special reporting network went into operation a week ago, it has provided the state SARS prevention leadership organizations with data, information and analytic reports on the floating population three times. The data shows that a total of 4.5 million people have flowed into rural areas trans-provincially from May 1 to 15. The number is accurately calculated village by village. The data also shows the population outflowing from Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shanxi, Guangdong provinces and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region has accounted for 52 percent of the total number of the trans-provincial transient population in the country. They have mainly flowed into Henan, Hunan, Anhui, and Hebei provinces. The data also shows that most population flowing into Henan is from Beijing and Hebei. Therefore, the SARS prevention work in Henan is facing a severe test.

According to the person in charge, the family planning service network has a wide coverage and close connection with the masses. Therefore, it has advantages in publicity and education and the advantages have been brought into play during the work of SARS prevention. For example, family planning departments at all levels have made full use of research organizations, publicity and education centers, newspapers, magazines and population websites within the system to carry out various publicity activities. These enable scientific information on SARS prevention and relevant laws and regulations to timely enter into every household in rural areas. Meanwhile, they have closely cooperated with health and epidemic prevention departments, making full use of their advantages in information, network and statistical reports. They have actively carried out consultation services and offered visiting check services to every household. They have established the monitoring system on migrant populations all over the country in a timely fashion.

The person in charge said that according to the latest data, the number of people flowing into rural areas is declining but slowly. It means rural migrant workers returning home are decreasing and those returning to cities increasing. She thinks it shows on the one hand, the SARS control measures that the government has taken are proper, increasing people's confidence. On the other hand, it also indicates that the busy farming season in many regions has concluded while some industries in the urban areas are back to normal.

In order to avoid the returning peak of rural migrant workers under the conditions that the epidemic situation in the cities is very likely to relapse, efforts will be made to encourage rural migrant workers to postpone returning to the cities. Relative departments are required to give guidance to those rural migrant workers seeking jobs outside. The person in charge said that the work of the network in the next phase will focus on the timely reporting and analysis on the quantity of rural migrant workers outflowing from rural areas and the direction of this outflowing.

(China.org.cn by staff reporter Hu Huiting, May 23, 2003)