Anyone arriving in the city from 11 affected areas will have to undergo quarantine to ensure they don't spread SARS in the city.

The 11 areas are Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, the Philippines, Toronto, Beijing, Tianjin, Guangdong, and the provinces of Shanxi, Hebei and Inner Mongolia.

The clarification follows a government circular published late last week that left many unclear of the city's quarantine rules. The government said yesterday that all local residents returning to the city from the 11 regions will be placed under medical observation, which means they cannot leave home and have to be separated from others for two weeks.

Travelers entering Shanghai from the 11 areas must undergo a health check and will be quarantined in their hotel rooms for the first two weeks they are in the city.

Those entering the city from areas other than the 11 designated regions will have their temperatures taken at the airport or railway station.

"We don't require people from other regions to be separated if they do not show any flu-like symptoms at the medical check when entering the city," explained Yang Guoqiang, director of the government's Foreign Affairs Office at a weekly press conference on SARS.

As of yesterday noon, there were still seven SARS cases in the city, including one death. Two new suspected cases were reported and two suspected cases were elimi-nated, bringing the total number of suspected patients to 10.

Among the six confirmed patients in Shanghai Infectious Disease Hospital and Shanghai Pulmonary Disease Hospital, two have recovered and can be released soon.

"But we are still keeping them, as required by patients themselves and their families. We also want to make sure that their condition is stable enough, since some patients in Hong Kong had a relapse after being discharged," said Liu Guohua, vice director of the Shanghai Health Bureau.

Officials also announced yesterday that the city is considering setting up a massive field hospital for SARS patients, similar to the one recently built just outside Beijing, in case the epidemic gets worse.

The Beijing facility, called Xiaotangshan Hospital, was built in eight days and holds 1,000 beds.

"A working plan for building the facility is under consideration and discussion," said Xue Peijian, vice secretary of the municipal government. "Whether the plan will be executed depends on the epidemic situation in Shanghai."

The existing local medical facilities can host 1,000 SARS patients, but the World Health Organization had suggested the city prepare more beds when WHO experts inspected Shanghai in late April.

(eastday.com May 15, 2003)