The survey on the source of new cases of SARS is crucial to the control of the spread of the epidemic, said Liang Wannian, deputy director of Beijing Health Bureau and epidemiologist, at a news conference held today on how to contain the disease.
“All of us are worrying about the new cases. As far as Beijing is concerned, new cases are spreading widely and appear everywhere. It is out of the question to be sure of every potential patient, but we have embedded a number of fever outpatient departments as check points at various districts of the city to provide timely diagnosis and treatment of patients. In addition, so long as a patient is found, statistical conduction and epidemiological analysis are undertaken timely and accurately,” Liang said.
“We are doing special research and investigation to specific SARS cases, which means a lot to the control of the epidemic, to identify their origin. Generally, we categorize the patients in groups of four according to their sources: first, patients at the fever outpatient department, i.e. who are under medical observation; second, quarantined after having close contact with SARS patients; third, those from outside of Beijing; fourth, randomly detected patients,” he said.
“We have adopted a series of measures including patient quarantine, epidemic observance and others in terms of patients who seek SARS medical service from outside of Beijing and those who are randomly detected,” added Liang. “More new SARS patients are under our control. We firmly believe that we can bring most SARS cases under control, which will minimize the harm of the epidemic in the whole of society.”
Also present at the conference were Zhang Mao, vice mayor of Beijing and Han Demin, managing director of the Beijing Health Bureau and an ENT (ear-nose-throat) expert. The conference, which was held in the Beijing International Hotel at 10:00 am this morning, was the 6th one given by the Beijing SARS Control Working Group.
(China.org.cn May 13, 2003)
