LANZHOU, July 2(Xinhuanet)-- The encephalitis outbreak among children in Tianshui, a city in northwest China's Gansu Province, is under control and 77 of all the 83 hospitalized children have been discharged, health officials said Saturday.

The other six children are also recuperating well and will be allowed to go home soon, said Wang Xiaoming, vice-director of the Gansu Provincial Health Department.

Wang's department held a press conference on Friday afternoon to brief the media on the latest development of the outbreak and results of health authorities' investigation.

After a joint investigation with health experts from Beijing, the provincial disease control and prevention center was able to confirm the outbreak was neither epidemic encephalitis nor encephalitis B, but a form of viral encephalitis.

"The expert panel foresaw no damage to the children's neural system as their cases were all very slight," said Wang.

At Friday's briefing Wang also ruled out suspicions that the outbreak was an immunoreaction caused by encephalitis B vaccination.

Between March 4 and June 23, two hospitals in Tianshui received153 young patients aged between one and 13 with fevers, headaches and vomiting. Fifty-three boys and 30 girls were diagnosed as having viral encephalitis. Enditem