Cai Fuchao, director of the publicity department of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), made the remarks at a press conference.

He said, patients' wards were isolated from one another.

Patients' waste is collected by professional anti-epidemic specialists every day, he said.

The living areas of doctors and nurses are isolated from that of the patients in the Xiaotangshan Hospital, he said.

After a week of hard work by over 7,000 builders, China's largest specialized SARS hospital, Beijing Xiaotangshan Hospital, was opened Thursday.

Some of the 1,200 medical staff due from the military services have arrived and are ready for work, and 156 SARS patients from 15 hospitals in urban areas in Beijing are being moved into the hospital as of Thursday evening.

The hospital, much of which was built as a temporary structure on the site of an existing facility, covers 8.13 hectares and has a floor space of 25,000 square meters. It accommodates 1,000 beds and a number of special facilities for treating SARS patients.

It is a major step taken by the city government to deal with the outbreak of the epidemic. By Thursday afternoon, medical facilities worth of 90 million yuan had been in place.

(Xinhua News Agency May 2, 2003)