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)