Chinese Executive Vice-Minister of Health Gao Qiang said Friday that it is not necessary to feel panic for coming to China as the sever acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic in China differs from place to place.
Among all the SARS probable cases reported on the Chinese mainland, about 97 percent are from Guangdong, Beijing, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Hebei and Tianjin, while the cases from other 20 plus provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities only account for three percent, said Gao at a press conference.
Gao said the six places, which were hardest-hit by the SARS, have 140 million people, accounting for 18.5 percent of the total population on the Chinese mainland.
"In other words, places with 81.5 percent of the total population, share about three percent of the total SARS patients in the Chinese mainland,' Gao said.
Gao said some provinces like Fujian, Hunan and Shandong, had nonew SARS cases reported for 40 consecutive days and other seven or eight provinces reported no new SARS cases for more than 20 days.
"Even in the case of Tianjin, which is relatively hard-hit by SARS, has not reported new SARS cases for 13 days."
"Why should it be the case that there are restrictions on traveling to all the Chinese people? And why should people be afraid of traveling to all the places in China?" Gao questioned.
Gao said he hoped the trade and business exchanges could be resumed as soon as possible between foreign countries and some of China's provinces which have no SARS cases reported or very slight SARS epidemic, under the condition that the current SARS prevention and control work continue to be strengthened.
If the international exchanges between China and other countries were interrupted for a long time, it would inevitably affect bilateral or multilateral relationships, said Gao.
(Xinhua News Agency May 30, 2003)
