Sudden Eruption of Pneumonia in Guangzhou Makes 'Vinegar Capital' Short of Supply

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, February 17, 2003

Sudden Eruption of Pneumonia in Guangzhou Makes 'Vinegar Capital' Short of Supply

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Recently it saw an eruption of cases of non-typical pneumonia sufferers in Guangzhou and its vicinities. To prevent the spread and contamination of the virus, the local people vied with one another to buy plain vinegar and vinegar concentrate, causing a big rise of the vinegar price in the city.

The normally not quite attractive vinegar has all of a sudden become something much sought for by the people in the Ram City. To meet with the dire needs of the people there the vinegar breweries big and small in the vinegar capital of Taiyuan are working head over heals for turning out more plain vinegar.

As announced recently by departments concerned in Guangzhou and Shenzhen there have already appeared 305 cases of non-typical pneumonia sufferers over the place and the event entailed the fervent grab for plain vinegar and vinegar concentrate.

According to a person named Wang in charge of the distribution of Shanxi vinegar products, the vinegar and its concentrate have recently been sold out by packs from local supermarkets and shops as suchlike. The original price of RMB 2.3 yuan a bottle of plain vinegar soared up to an "astronomic price" of RMB 180 yuan a bottle in the panic-buying days. Due to the panic purchasing wrestles and strives often occurred then and there for the vinegar.

And under such circumstances, the local businessmen have to make up the supply by drawing it in from peripheral provinces and regions and even the adjacent regions have to do the same from their neighboring provinces and areas. However, the practice was still not enough to "quench the thirstiness" for the vinegar.

In the meantime, the sales and distribution of the plain vinegar by the Shuita Laochencu Co. Ltd in Shanxi witnessed a sudden change as of "no request" in the past, clients and business dealers from all over the country phoned 20 - 30 times a day to order its product. Chang Fenggang, a person in charge of the business section told the reporter, the company's daily output of one ton plain vinegar was still not enough to cope with the supply at the moment.

Workers were busy with bottling the finished product on extra night shifts so as to make up the shortage of supply. The other vinegar breweries are landed in more or less the same predicament in the vinegar capital of Taiyuan.

The vinegar itself is effective for disinfection and has no side-effect nor has it any harm to human bodies. The plain vinegar and vinegar concentrate as against the long-preserved vinegar, having a special feature of no pollution for sticks of furniture, will not make change the color of the furniture, hence becoming the ace from among the disinfectants. People used to make the vinegar a sort of seasonings in the past. However, to buy and use it as a preventive medicine on such a large scale this is something never seen in the country before.

By People's Daily Online

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