The cluster of figures hit an all-time low of new cases since the country started reporting daily on April 20. It was the fourth day in a row that China's mainland reported a single-digit increase in cumulative SARS cases.

On Wednesday, visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao said when addressing the Moscow State Institute of International Relations that the arduous efforts by the Chinese government had achieved notable gains in the war on SARS. China would continue to cooperate with the international community and contribute to final conquest over the disease, he said.

Amid a steady decline in SARS cases, the combat against SARS in rural areas is becoming more and more important. Seeking to step up efforts to fight SARS in the countryside, the Ministry of Health and the other five central government departments jointly issued guidelines requiring governments at all levels to enhance leadership and strengthen SARS education.

The guidelines urged local governments to use every effort to stop the disease from spreading in rural areas and demanded all peasants infected with the SARS virus be treated freely.

In Hebei Province, vice governor Cai Limin said that the biggest challenge was posed by the 1.2-million-strong migrant workers who returned home. The overall measures taken by the provincial government had been effective so far, but there was no reason to relax vigilance.

Cai said local governments had organized villagers to help workers' families with their harvest to persuade migrant workers not to return for summer harvest.

On an inspection tour of western Beijing, Liu Qi, secretary of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China, said that the fight against SARS in the capital city had entered the final critical stage. Since there were increasing social and economic activities with each passing day, he warned against any relaxation among officials.

Crowds of migrant workers and students are thronging back to Beijing by rail. In a bid to guard against the spread of SARS by the floating population, more than 100 inspectors have been posted around Beijing West Railway Station to step up monitoring.

Meanwhile, railway station management has decided not to use central air-conditioner within the station and its neighboring areas for fear of cross infection of SARS.

The latest report by the Beijing Economic and Social Development Research Institution predicted that the SARS epidemic might be brought under control by mid-June.

In Shanghai, the SARS epidemic spelt a blow to the city's taxi industry. To help minimize the economic loss of 100 thousand cab drivers, the Shanghai municipal government adopted a policy to subsidize the hard-hit industry on Wednesday.

A recent poll by Shanghai's commercial information center showed that as SARS fears had eased, customers in the city have gradually returned to normal consumption with guarded optimism.

(Xinhua News Agency May 29, 2003)