The Chinese University of Hong Kong announced here Sunday that its Physical Containment Level 3 Laboratory for infectious diseases will start operation next month.

    Professor Joseph Sung of the university´s faculty of medicine said the new established laboratory would be utilized to carry out tests of infectious diseases including (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) SARS and the threatening avian flu etc.

    According to Sung, the university would put studies of SARS in priority, which include the mechanisms of lymphocyte loss in SARS-CoV infection and the identification of human cell line model of persistent coronavirus (SARS-CoV) infection and studies in the cytokines and chemokines response.

    Besides, avian flu projects comprising studies on new anti-viral compounds and drug resistance would also be done in the laboratory.

    Sung said while Vietnam and Thailand keep discovering new cases of human contracting avian flu, Hong Kong is at an alert level in the threat of the disease.

    At this stage, the most important is to watch closely the development of the spread of the disease, he said.