Beijing is to step up quarantine on the large number of floating population as more and more people from outside began reentering the city to find jobs or do business, a municipal official said Tuesday.

He said so far there was no cluster infection by severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) among the floating population in the city. By mid May, a total of more than 2.63 million people from outside Beijing lived in the city, some 600,000 less than the number in the end of April.

Ji Lin, deputy director of the Beijing municipal joint leading group on SARS control, told a press conference Tuesday morning that Beijing would impose strict quarantine on the floating population as they enter the city, their residence in neighborhood communities and places where they work or do business.

Beijing also required the migrant population to register at local neighborhood communities as they rent or move in housing in the city, Ji said. He said municipal government personnel would inspect hygienic conditions of the housing rent and forbid the lease of those failing to meet quarantine standards.

He said the municipal government also asked the house owners and employers to shoulder responsibility of SARS prevention among the floating population.

(Xinhua News Agency May 20, 2003)