They agreed it's hard to obtain 100 percent cure medicines currently, but progress has been made day by day.

SK Lam, dean of medicine with the University of Hong Kong, said at a news briefing that the objectives of the discussion are to advocate collaborations between medical professionals from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hong Kong to join hands in fighting against the killer virus.

The meeting, which lasts for two days, was organized by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC) and the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Hong Kong (HKU). The meeting contained several panel discussions.

Experts agreed that Hong Kong may continue to use steroids and Ribavirin as the first line treatment. For those patients not responding, experts advocate proper control study for using other treatments including Immunoglobin M.

The Coronavirus is regarded as the etiologic agent of this new disease, or better known as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). However, co-infection with other pathogens might contribute to increased severity of the disease, experts of the virology and pathogenesis session said.

Regarding controlling the spreading of the disease among the medical staff, who are at the most risk when treating patients closely, Wang Ming, deputy director of Guangzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said the most important thing is to carry out thoroughly the basic prevention principles, such as wearing masks and washing hands whenever it's needed.

"According to our experience, it is also very important to keep the rooms as ventilated as possible, especially when we still have not definite understanding about the ways of virus spreading," Wang said.

"We should demonstrate our ability to collaborate with medical professionals," SK Lam said, "the battle against SARS requires the effort of all people regardless of classes, geographical regions and races."

Tao Hung, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said the war against SARS now is a hard one, but one that we must and surely can win.

"We should not be panic too much, and people have to take all preventive measures against the disease," he said.

(Xinhua News Agency April 27, 2003)