Material support is crucial in the fight against the SARS disease and to guarantee public health, said Zeng at a meeting held shortly after the State Council national teleconference which was focused on the fight against SARS and on economic work in rural areas.

The vice-premier requested the establishment of a fund solely for building outpatient departments especially for those patients with fervent fevers and isolation wards in county-level medical institutions and to purchase medical equipment for the control of the SARS epidemic in the country's rural areas.

Urban hospitals should take the advantage of medical and technological resources to help especially-built hospitals in rural areas so as to increase their capability to accommodate and treat patients with SARS, he said.

Zeng also called for enhanced efforts to raise the quarantine capability, epidemic prevention, anti-epidemic drug production and disposal of sewage.

Moreover, he urged the building of more isolation wards in ports, the manufacture of more respirators and monitors and the expansion of the stock of contingency medicines.

China will, Zeng noted, work harder still to complete the nationwide prevention and control networks at the provincial, regional and county levels by the end of this year.

The relevant governmental departments should work in coordination, define their objectives and speed up the examination and approval of emergency projects, ensure capital supplies and the quality of anti-SARS projects and equipment.

(Xinhua News Agency May 8, 2003)