The researchers are conducting antigen and anti-body interaction tests of tissues from SARS patients.

Those tests can determine if the corona-like virus found in many SARS victims can cause the disease alone or if it would need to work in tandem with another virus.

"We have invited the most experienced and authoritative medical experts in Shanghai in the fields of public health, epidemiology, bacteriology, pneumology and pediatrics," said Dr Zhang Shengnian, director of the Shanghai Disease Prevention and Control Center and a member of the expert panel.

"We are short of patient samples since there is only one confirmed patient in Shanghai," said Zhang, noting that the team is using tissue samples from other provinces to do experiments on.

Zhang and his team hope to confirm the cause of SARS so they can develop a reagent, which can be used to positively diagnose the disease much quicker than current tests.

Currently, to make a diagnosis of SARS, local experts have to compare samples from suspected patients with nine known respiratory diseases including flu, parainflenza, bird-flu and legionnaires pneumonia.

If the primary check fails to match one of the nine diseases, a further check on blood serum, virus antigens, molecular biology, respiratory tract viruses and cell separation and cultivation will help confirm whether the patient has SARS, Zhang added.

Another task for the local team is studying the effective treatment of breathing difficulties, analyzing how the disease has spread and researching better disinfection and quarantine measures on the basis of guide-lines set up by the World Health Organization.

Local medical facilities are also taking measures to prevent and control the spread of SARS.

"We set up separated consulting rooms and hospitalization wards for SARS cases. The entire unit has undergone careful disinfection and we installed special medical equipment for quick diagnoses," said Wu Jinglei, vice director of Fudan University's Children's Hospital, which is one of two local hospitals designated to handle children suspected of contracting SARS.

To date, the hospital says it hasn't received a single SARS patient.

Officials from the Shanghai Infectious Disease Hospital said the city's only SARS patient is receiving treatment there and she is reportedly on the way to recovery.

(Eastday.com April 14, 2003)