Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong Province, will spend some two billion yuan (about 2.41 billion US dollars) over three years in construction of a public health emergency response mechanism.

According to Huang Jionglie, head of Guangzhou City Health Bureau, a network for disease prevention and control, rescue and treatment of contagious diseases and supervision of health law enforcement will take shape in the near future.

Construction of the network for disease prevention and control in urban communities and rural areas of the city has begun and will be finished by 2008, said Huang.

According Huang, the projects the city government has decided to construct will include a new CDC with a combined floor space of 40,000 square meters, a modern hospital with 1,000 beds for contagious diseases and a specialized city-wide health information network.

He pledged the city would continue to spend more in improving health facilities in the city's rural areas.

Guangdong was one of the first areas hit by the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in late 2002. The air-borne epidemic quickly spread to Beijing, Shanghai and elsewhere in China from late spring and ensuing summer in 2003.

Guangzhou, the provincial capital and the busiest hub of transportation in south China, has appointed a command team and has prepared countermeasures for potential public health emergencies across the city.