China’s capital, Beijing, has imposed an early-warning system for infectious diseases, anticipating a possible return of the SARS virus as winter sets in, the Beijing Morning Post said on Friday.

The system divides infectious disease outbreaks into four classes of magnitude, with different responses to be put in motion for each.

Class one, or severe outbreaks, covers the infection of 100 or more people by SARS or any other infectious disease and contagions that expand by more than 20 percent in two months, the newspaper said.

Three public hospitals, including Ditan Hospital, which handled many of Beijing’s SARS cases in last year’s outbreak, and one military hospital had been designated as treatment centres for class one and two outbreaks.

In the last two weeks, China has issued emergency instructions to hospitals nationwide to isolate patients suffering from severe respiratory diseases and banned the cooking and selling of civet cat, an animal considered the primary source of last year’s SARS epidemic.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome emerged in China’s southern Guangdong province in November 2002 and was soon spread by travellers worldwide.

The disease eventually killed 800 people around the world, 300 of them in China, and infected around 8,000, dealing a severe blow to several Asian economies.

Nine people were confirmed infected with SARS in April this year in Beijing and Anhui province and one died.