The Chinese Ministry of Health (MOH) Sunday warned the country's health-care departments to remain alert while the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) epidemic was stabilized on the mainland.

Gao Qiang, executive vice-minister of health, told a nationally-televised meeting of the health-care system 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 accumulative 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.

The SARS cases were concentrated in China's northern provinces surrounding Beijing, including Hebei, Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, and Tianjin, Gao said.

Most of the SARS patients in south China's Guangdong Province, which reported the first SARS patient and once was the worst-affected region, have recovered and left hospital, the vice-minister said.

There is no evidence that the communicable disease has broken out in China's vast rural area, which accounts for more than one billion of the country's population, Gao said, adding that only 248 farmers and 299 migrant workers have contracted the virus.

This indicates the SARS situation in China has eased, Gao said.

However, health-care departments should be on the alert for the rebound of the disease as people's awareness of self-protection might be lowered by the good news, he said.

Gao urged the local medical departments to timely adjust and improve prevention and treatment measures according to their own situation and practice.

In addition to a national emergency disease reporting system, Gao said, local medical departments should also establish disease reporting networks from the provincial level to the village level, and the designated hospitals for treating contagious diseases should be set up at the prefectural and city level.

The provincial health-care authorities should prepare mobile emergency medical teams with first-class doctors and equipment for future epidemics, Gao said, adding that all those aims should be fulfilled in two years.

Gao stressed the use of traditional Chinese medicines in the SARS fight, which he said had been successful in combating numerous diseases and epidemics over its development of thousands of years.

The vice-minister also underlined the prevention work of other epidemics, saying local medical institutes should keep an eye on those diseases.

(Xinhua News Agency May 25, 2003)