Inner Mongolia Must Check Disease Spread in Rural Areas: Experts

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, May 16, 2003

Inner Mongolia Must Check Disease Spread in Rural Areas: Experts

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Chinese medical experts called for greater efforts Thursday in Beijing to curb the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) among local farmers and herders in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, despite the basically curbed rising trend.

Inner Mongolia, the fourth most heavily-plagued area in the country, has so far reported 5.6 percent of the total SARS patients on Chinese mainland, said Nie Jun, an epidemic analyst from China's SARS Prevention and Treatment Team.

Statistics showed that the number of SARS-affected counties anddistricts have dropped from the original 24 to 14 10 days ago, andthen to three, five days ago, an evidence of continuously narrowedplagued areas.

According to Nie, the outbreak of SARS is very unbalanced in Inner Mongolia, with the county-based SARS cases differentiating as many as 300 times between the top and bottom.

To date, a total of 86 percent of the cases are found in four cities and districts under Hohhot, the autonomous regional capital,and two counties under Bayan Zhuo'er Prefecture.

Nie Jun said government officials, farmers and herders constitute an increasingly greater proportion among the recently inflicted SARS patients in the region.

He attributed the rise to increasingly greater numbers of SARS cases reported in Hohhot and Bayan Zhuo'er.

Nie stressed subsequently that top priority must be paid to epidemic prevention in the two places, particularly to preventing a further spread of the virus among local farmers and herders.

So far, Inner Mongolia has basically curbed SARS with dramatically dropping clinically confirmed cases and suspected cases, slowly growing discharged patient rates and steadily falling death toll.

As of 10:00 a.m. May 15, Inner Mongolia reported a total of 288cumulative SARS cases, 173 suspected cases and 23 discharged SARS patients.

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