Hong Kong and Macao should count on a disease notification mechanism and a reinforced entry point quarantine to fight against the mutable SARS virus, which apparently struck a back thrust in Canada, agreed senior disease control officials of the two special administrative regions of China in Macao Friday.

Eng Kiong Yeoh, secretary of the Health, Welfare and Food of the HK Special Administrative Region government, said during his visit to Macao Friday that HK has been closely following the study of the mysterious outbreak of a respiratory illness in Canada's western province of British Columbia. If the World Health Organization could confirm that the illness is caused by a new corona virus, which is related to that of SARS, HK needs to quickly take effective measures on the disease control.

Yeoh came at the invitation of Chui Sai On, secretary of Social and Cultural Affairs of Macao, who was appointed to take charge of the Macao SARS task force during the epidemic outbreak. During their meeting, the two sides reviewed the measures that have been taken in the contamination of the epidemic and discussed details on the implementation of the disease notification mechanism.

The mechanism first tried in the fight against SARS was officially clinched along with south China's Guangdong Province on Aug. 5 in Macao. Applied on all types of communicable diseases that may threaten the health of residents in the south China region, the mechanism underpins a monthly notification on the situation of communicable diseases, and requires the health departments to make a copy for each other's reference when they make written reports to the local governments on the situation of epidemics.

Under the framework of the collaboration, health departments in the three parties can carry out joint disease prevention, treatment and monitoring. Data on the analysis results concerning communicable diseases and the virus should be shared.

Yeoh said that the HK government has earmarked 400 million HK dollars (US$48 million) to build and equip 1,290 separation wards in nine hospitals, which are expected to be completed in three months. It also plans to select a site to build a separated rehabilitation center to accommodate SARS patients.

(Xinhua News Agency August 23, 2003)