China's epidemic of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) which last spring captured so much of the international spotlight, is now being overshadowed by the equally lethal avian flu virus.

Both outbreaks demanded - and saw - consistent efforts from the government and public to curb their spread.

As a result of the deadly nature of both afflictions and the hype surrounding them, people have become more conscious of the threat posed by epidemic diseases.

However, they might easily get trapped in the misconception that SARS and the bird flu represent the extent of contagious diseases.

They do not.

The Ministry of Health said last week that in 2003 rabies was the most fatal of the 27 infectious diseases which must be reported to health authorities in China.

The virus, often transmitted through the bite of rabid animals, killed 1,980 people in China last year while SARS claimed 349 and AIDS took 379 lives.

In fact, from the total number of 6,474 deaths by infectious diseases in China last year, SARS accounted for only 5.3 per cent.

Certainly that low ratio does not in any sense discredit the large-scale resources and number of personnel allocated for the fight against SARS, and it is undeniable that without these efforts many more lives would have been in jeopardy.

But the relatively small proportion reminds us that some seemingly less acute diseases can cause more human and resource losses, and they deserve our due care.

We can deduce from last year's SARS crisis and the outbreak of this year's bird flu that concerted efforts from people of all walks of life can effectively keep any virus, however violent, at bay.

The same lesson can also be applied to the prevention of the more common epidemic diseases, such as hepatitis, which tops the list of the 10 most common infectious diseases in terms of incidence last year.

AIDS is also posing an increasingly serious threat to the country. China has 840,000 HIV carriers, while the number of its AIDS patients is pegged at 80,000.
Those are small numbers compared to most HIV/AIDS-ridden nations, but they still might serve as a warning of possible catastrophic explosion in the future.

But the authorities have learned from SARS and the bird flu and the increased number of HIV/AIDS cases. Medical input has been on the rise and plans for training more professional medical workers have been mapped out.

For stemming epidemics, specifically, a national infectious diseases surveillance and reporting system has been put in place apart from increased financial and personnel input.

Seen in a historical perspective, since the founding of New China, the country has witnessed a decreased resource input in epidemic disease prevention following its effective control of the spread of such life-menacing contagious diseases as measles and tuberculosis in the 1950s.

Today, however, sanitation and anti-epidemic stations only account for 1.3 per cent of China's 330,000 medical institutions, and only 4 per cent of the country's medical and health technicians focus on epidemic prevention work.

The public health authorities should continue their investment drive, not just for the purpose of checking SARS or bird flu, but for the construction of an efficient national control structure dealing with all major epidemics.

The rural areas, which suffer from weak medical and public health facilities, should be a priority target for increased public health investment because farmers are the main victims of many of the epidemic diseases.