China is on heightened alert for the return of SARS as the cold sets in, with the northern port of Tianjin resuming temperature checks and top epidemiologists saying the virus is certain to make a comeback.
The official Xinhua news agency quoted experts including Zeng Guang, of China's disease control and prevention center, saying that SARS would "definitely" return over winter.
"But the scale of the epidemic depends on the control measures we take," Zeng told a symposium in Beijing.
Passengers arriving in Tianjin with temperatures of 38?C or above were to be held for medical observation and reported to authorities, the official Xinhua news agency said.
Beijing, where temperatures have dipped in the past week and hover close to freezing at night, was staffing its disease control center around the clock, Xinhua said, adding Inner Mongolia and Shanxi had re-activated their emergency response systems.
SARS emerged in southern China as winter began last year, infecting more than 8,000 people and killing more than 700 around the world. More than 5,300 people caught the disease in China, which for months failed to disclose the scale of contagion.
China resumed announcing its daily caseload immediately after a laboratory researcher in Singapore became the first person to contract SARS in months, but it has yet to report a new case.
At a top-level meeting last Thursday, Vice-Premier Wu Yi (吳儀), the acting health minister, warned that people delaying reporting or hiding cases would be severely punished, Xinhua reported.
Zhong Nanshan, a prominent SARS expert from Guangdong Province, said people should play more sports and maintain good respiratory health to fend off the virus.
"Spitting in public and eating wild animals are very dangerous," Zhong said.
Hospitals in Beijing have maintained special fever wards set up during the height of the outbreak in April and May. But doctors say Beijing is facing a severe shortage of flu shots just weeks after it rolled out a high-profile campaign to vaccinate the population to make it easier to pinpoint SARS.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese