Beijing is playing host to a gathering of over 300 experts from around the world at an anti-SARS symposium.

The focus of the meeting, which began yesterday, is to forge closer ties in the global scientific community to advance the technology for identifying the disease and developing a vaccine against it.

The international symposium, sponsored by China's ministries of science and technology, health and education, the Beijing municipal government and other relevant departments, has drawn representatives from the World Health Organization (WHO) and 19 countries including the United States, Australia and Canada.

Henk Bekedam, the WHO China representative, said his organization had worked closely with Beijing in the campaign to combat SARS in the past few months.

He expressed his appreciation to health and medical workers both in China and worldwide for dedicated work fighting the disease.

"Although the SARS outbreaks have been controlled, we still face the task of eliminating the disease,'' he said.

SARS has become a global common enemy. Therefore, international co-operation is more important than competition, said Bekedam.

Speaking at yesterday's opening ceremony of symposium of medical and biological experts, State Councillor Chen Zhilli spoke of the considerable contribution that Chinese scientists had made to combating the virus, new in mankind. They have conducted an enormous amount of research into spread trends of SARS, clinical treatment technology, combinations of western diagnostic practice and traditional Chinese medicines, protective technology and equipment for SARS prevention, and the development of vaccines and drugs.

But despite all the efforts to date, greater ones are needed to find more reliable and early diagnostic methods for SARS and to develop a vaccine against the disease, said Chen.

The disease outbreak had provided a timely wake-up call for the capital's healthcare services. And, said Vice-mayor of Beijing Fan Boyuan, the Chinese capital is making an all effort to improve its public health facilities, in order to provide better services and also be better placed to respond to any future infectious disease outbreaks.

In another development, the Ministry of Science and Technology issued a regulation aimed at tightening the management of publications relating to national scientific achievements.

The regulation states that important national scientific achievements, including SARS-related research findings, will be reported to the ministry before being released.

The regulation aims to avoid invalidated, random or exaggerated publication of research findings by institutions or companies.

Chinese scientists have been involved in extensive co-operation with overseas counterparts over the past few SARS-hit months, according to Wang Weizhong, an official with the Key Science and Technology Group under the National Task Force for SARS Control and Prevention.

Those exchanges included submissions by overseas-based Chinese scientists of 170 suggestions and technological projects to the group. Some of these technological projects, involving vaccines and drug development, have been collated by the Chinese Academy of Medical Science and Academy of Military Medical Science, said Wang.

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