Carrying a big bag of sterilizing equipment weighing more than 30 kg, Zhang Biao was on his way to a village near Longmen township, Ya'an, at noon on Monday. He felt tired, and sweat poured down his face.

Zhang, one of the soldiers with the Chengdu Military Area Command's quarantine team, came to the county on Saturday afternoon with three companions.

Due to the narrow and cracked roads, he must walk to the county's villages to spray disinfectant. "We drove a car, but it couldn't work on such terrible roads," said the 29-year-old, who graduated from Sichuan University's West China Center of Medical Sciences.