Li's father telephoned him from his hometown in Fengxian County in the eastern province of Anhui and said the local government had organized a special team to help harvest the crops.

Meng Qinggui, head of Li's home village, said dozens of Li's fellow villagers are working in big cities and have been told to stay where they are.

Governments at different levels in China are working hard to stop transient farmers from fleeing SARS-hit cities as part of the nationwide efforts to prevent the spread of the SARS virus into rural areas, where medical conditions are much poorer than cities.

In Anhui, of nine local SARS patients reported as of May 8, seven are rural laborers returning from Beijing, Guangdong Province, and the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, while six of the 11 local SARS suspects are also returned transient workers, according to Gao Kaiyan, director of the provincial health department.

Anhui is home to about six million transient workers, mostly working in Beijing and Guangdong, the two areas that have been hit the worst by the virus.

Currently, most of local villages in Anhui have blocked the entrance, conduct medical checks on all passers-by and sterilize vehicles. All the returned transient workers and outside visitors have to report to local authorities.

Meanwhile, local governments have sent over 2,000 teams to patrol the countryside and put all the SARS suspects under quarantine. Any of those quarantined people who break the quarantine face severe punishment.

So far, the provincial government has sent 10 working groups to direct the anti-SARS campaign in local areas.

A total of 1,238 special SARS clinics have been opened around Anhui Province, with almost 6,000 medical staff. Moreover, over 60,000 local medical workers have been trained for the same purpose.

(Xinhua News Agency May 11, 2003)