A leading Chinese scientist on Friday predicted there would be no outbreak of SARS in the coming winter, but warned of the possibility of sporadic cases and urged the public not to ease up on preventive measures.

Prof. Zhong Nanshan said that the Chinese government has begun to revive all-round measures to prevent a possible comeback of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), which infected some 8,400 people worldwide in the past spring, killing more than 900, mostly in Asia.

"Various governmental departments have been working to get ready, such as improving the monitoring system and publishing a national guideline to provide suggestions on prevention, diagnosis and treatment," Zhong told Xinhua.

"With these active measures, I believe there will not be an outbreak of SARS this winter," he said.

But the academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering did not exclude the possibility of a resurgence of sporadic cases, saying that much work remains on those basic measures like early discovery, early isolation, and early contact tracing.

Zhong earned fame in China when he led a research team at a respiratory disease institute to effectively fight against SARS in south China's Guangdong Province, where the disease first appeared.

Zhong said the public should be encouraged to take flu vaccines this winter in order to decrease the number of fever cases which could be easily linked to SARS and cause uneasiness among the public.

He also cautioned that it was too early to lift the ban on eating civet cats that was issued by China's wild animal protection authorities after it was highly suspected as the animal host of the SARS coronavirus.

Civets and some other wild animals are favorites on dining tables in many areas of China. Fears over SARS provided a short term sanctuary for the animals.

But some reports recently suggested that eating civets would be allowed again in Guangdong Province.

"It's absolutely inappropriate to do that and I don't agree with it," Zhong said, adding that research has not ruled out the possible link between the civet and SARS transmission.

(Xinhua News Agency October 17, 2003)