Substantial headway has been made in China's fight against SARS as
reports show the spread of the severe acute respiratory syndrome
(SARS) epidemic is basically under control, and research on the
SARS virus has made breakthroughs.
Gao Qiang, executive vice-minister of health, told a
nationally-televised meeting on Sunday that the country witnessed a
downward trend of newly reported SARS cases and over 80 percent of
them were suspect-turned-diagnosed cases.
China reported 5,316 cumulative SARS cases as of 10:00 a.m. Sunday,
including 16 cases diagnosed in the past 24 hours. The mysterious
flu-like disease has killed 315 people on the mainland and caused
public panic at its peak.
Gao said the daily average of new cases dropped from 80 in the
first ten days of May to 20 now. Thirteen of the 25 SARS-hit
provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions reported less than
10 accumulative SARS cases while some others have only suspect
cases.
Rao Keqin, an analyst on epidemics with the national working group
for SARS prevention and treatment, noted that the overall SARS
situation in China has eased and new cases are only sporadic rather
than newly-infected families, medical workers and workers from the
same working fields.
Breakthroughs were also made in research. Experts have found the
coronavirus gene in bats, monkeys, snakes and other wild animals,
and have proved that the SARS virus in the animals existed before
that in humans.
To
prevent a rebound of the epidemic, more scientific and careful SARS
detecting systems have been deployed on all the major roads around
Beijing. About 160 volunteers have taken actions to prevent people
spitting on the streets and distributed sanitary tissues.
Gao urged local medical departments to be on alert and to timely
improve prevention and treatment measures.
The Ministry of Commerce urged people to make full use of
electronic commerce to maintain economic development while fighting
SARS.
The 19 McDonald's stores in the Chaoyang district in Beijing are
allowed to sell food outdoors from Sunday, and other restaurants
will follow suit.
(Xinhua News Agency May 25, 2003)