The severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is an unexpected and
serious disaster to human beings, threatening the health and safety
of the people in Asia and even the world, Chinese Vice-Minister of
Health said in Beijing Tuesday.
Gao Qiang, executive vice-minister of health, made the remark at
the opening of the ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations), China, Japan and the Republic of Korea (ROK) (10+3)
High-Level Symposium on SARS.
Gao said the first SARS outbreak was recorded in south China's
Guangdong Province at the beginning of this year.
On
February 11, before other countries and regions reported any SARS
case, Gao said, China made public the SARS situation in
Guangdong.
However, owing to limited understanding of the new contagious
disease, the vice-minister said "the measures we adopted then were
not strong enough and SARS began to spread in Beijing, Shanxi,
Inner Mongolia and some other places."
The Chinese government has earnestly drawn lessons from past
experience and adopted more effective measures to prevent, control
and treat the epidemic, said Gao.
The SARS situation in China has improved and the rise in SARS cases
has been subdued, Gao said.
In
mid-April, 154 probable cases were added on a daily basis; the
figure slipped to an average of 151 in the first ten days of May.
In the second and third ten days of May, Gao said, the figure
dropped to 45 and 12, respectively.
By
June 2, five provinces in China's mainland had had no SARS cases,
while northeastern Heilongjiang Province and the northwestern
Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region went without clinically diagnosed
SARS cases.
(Xinhua News Agency June 4, 2003)