A senior official ruled out Friday any "large escape" of college students in Beijing caused by the panic over severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).
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 in Beijing.
Currently, 39 out of the 670,000 college students in the Chinese capital were confirmed SARS patients, he said.
According to Cai, students who applied to return hometown should meet following criteria:
Passing medical examination and no such symptoms as fever;
Destination not labeled as SARS-infected area;
Destination not in rural area;
Destination not in western region.
College authorities were required to keep close contacts with those already leaving Beijing, Cai said.
When asked about the situation in rural areas, Cai said there was no single rural resident confirmed to be infected by severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in Beijing so far.
Several millions of people live in Beijing's rural areas. Officials at all levels in rural Beijing were required to take full measures for ensuring the health of residents in their administrative areas, he said.
Speaking of Xiaotangshan Hospital, a field hospital built in eight days, Cai said it meets full anti-epidemic sanitary criteria. According to him, patients' wards were isolated from one another. And the living areas of doctors and nurses are isolated from that of the patients.
Patients' waste is collected by professional anti-epidemic specialists every day, he said.
Liang Wannian, deputy director of Beijing Health Bureau, also attended the press conference. He said Beijing's SARS epidemic "was in a stable period with the upward trend contained."
He admitted that it is still hard to predict when SARS comes to low epidemic. As time goes by, he said, a group-immunity is expected to develop among people, thus forming an immunity-shield for the vulnerable.
Liang, also an epidemiologist, said it is still an urgent job to cut off infection source and routes and strengthen protection of the vulnerable people.
(Xinhua News Agency May 2, 2003)
