For most ordinary people in Beijing, the days of SARS have largely been reduced to a distant memory. Only some obscure images of white masks, which became one of the trademarks on the epidemic, seen as they were on every street corner of the city, may remain in their minds.

"But for doctors and nurses in the city's hospitals, those days were a life and death experience," said Zhang Hongfeng, one of two CCTV reporters who stayed in Ditan Hospital from April 24 to June 24 to record the fight against the epidemic.

Tonight, one year after the first case of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) first surfaced in China, the Witness-Image File program of CCTV (China Central Television) will launch a nine-episode documentary serial to provide people across the country with a panorama of the darkest and most moving days of the epidemic.

The first part, "60 Days in Ditan Hospital," covering six episodes, uses video footage and photographs to record the doctors' fight with death on the operating tables, bitter scenes in the children's ward, and the intrepid work of the researchers in the hospital's labs.

The second part, covering two episodes, tells the story of what happened in Tou 23 Tiao Lane, one of thousands of neighborhood committees that "together present a broad picture of everyday Beijing life."

The last episode tells the story of an emergency squad of policemen who take on a brand-new task during the special period. The officers had to cope with all kinds of SARS-related cases, including a lot of false claims of SARS infection from criminal suspects.

CCTV's Channel 1 aired the serial's first episode this Monday. A new episode will be aired from Monday through Wednesday every week

(China Daily November 19, 2003)