Chinese President Hu Jintao said Sunday he is confident about China's
ability to find the methods to combat Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome
(SARS) through the useof high technology and through persistent
efforts.


Chinese President Hu Jintao said Sunday he is confident about China's
ability to find the methods to combat Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome
(SARS) through the useof high technology and through persistent
efforts.

He made the remarks during a visit to the microbiology department of
the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Medical Institute and to the
genealogical institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.

Hu, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC)
Central Committee, highly praised the research staff of the two institutes
for their efforts in the development of the technology used in rapid
diagnosis of SARS after successfully isolating the new type of coronavirus,
which is believed to be the causative agent responsible for SARS.

The key to win the battle against SARS is to give full play to science
and technology, Hu stressed, asking the scientists to continue to
develop an effective cure for SARS.

Hu said that the Chinese government is concerned with the SARS outbreak
in parts of the country. The CPC Central Committee and the State
Council have been giving top priority to the situation, he said, noting that
a number of measures have been taken.

He said the rapid identification of the causative agent and thequick
development of a method to effectively and quickly diagnose the virus
have become vital for SARS prevention and treatment.

He said the battle against SARS is a major task affecting the health
and safety of the Chinese, as well as the country's development and
stability.

He urged governments at all levels to be fully conscious of the extreme
importance and stringency of prevention and control of thedisease and
to spare no efforts to do a better work in all aspectsin accordance with
the deployment and requirements of the central government.


China Invents One-hour SARS Virus Test
China has introduced a testing method which can detect the presence of
severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus within one hour, experts
said Sunday.

The method, based on the sequencing of the virus' genome, was jointly
developed by the Beijing Genome Institute under the Chinese Academy of
Sciences and the Institute of Microbial Epidemics Affiliated to the
Medical Research Institute of the People's Liberation Army.

The new method uses the specially-modified protein of the virus to
detect the presence of a type of antibody which the body produces as a
response to infection with the virus, according to experts, who said that
the presence of the antibody is an absolutely certain indicator of the
existence of the virus.

The method is safe, inexpensive and requires a relatively small sample
for testing, and, most strikingly, it produces accurate results within
one hour.

The PLA's Microbial Epidemic Institute's previous test produced results
in about two hours.