China has won the battle against SARS, Premier Mr Wen Jiabao said today, as the focus on preventing the spread of the deadly virus turned to Beijing and the north ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday.
Mr Wen, speaking at the third plenary meeting of the State Council, said China had made advances in reforms and opening up the country in the last year, as well as in the fight against SARS.
"Wen delivered a speech to the meeting, saying that the Chinese people won the severe fight against the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)," Xinhua news agency said.
China has confirmed three SARS cases in the southern province of Guangdong - two have since recovered and one is in stable condition in hospital.
SARS first emerged in Guangdong late in 2002 before being spread by travellers to more than 30 countries, infecting about 8,000 people and killing nearly 800.
Now China is turning its attention to Beijing and the north in fighting the virus as tens of millions of people take to the road for the Lunar New Year holiday.
"The coming period will be critical for China's prevention of the disease and more efforts are needed to closely monitor the epidemic situation," Xinhua quoted Vice Premier Mr Wu Yi as saying in an overnight report.
Authorities would scrutinise travellers in five provincial areas in north China, including Beijing, with a population of 14 million, and the neighbouring port of Tianjin, Wu said.
The five regions would "launch proper publicity campaigns" to prevent the disease, it said without elaborating.
China's 1.3 billion people are expected to take about 1.89 billion rail, bus or plane trips during the 40-day peak travel period that began on January 7th. The New Year begins on January 22nd.
Many people head to their home provinces to be with their families. Many newly rich travel abroad, with South Korea, Hong Kong, Macau and Southeast Asian resorts among the most popular destinations.
"Wu called on departments of quarantine, railway, transportation and civil aviation to strictly follow the anti-SARS regulations in order to prevent the possible spread of the disease as hundreds of millions of people are expected to travel during the coming month," Xinhua said.
"SARS has not been very infectious and the victims have recovered quickly, but we cannot become careless or relax our vigilance," a ministry spokesman said.
World Health Organisation experts see civet cats as prime suspects in the spread of SARS after finding traces of the virus in cages in a restaurant where a patient served up civet dishes.