Hong Kong, May 18 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- A senior official of the World Health Organization (WHO) today warned countries to learn from the experience of the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak in order to be ready for new and possibly more deadly diseases in the future.
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“As we have already seen with avian influenza, the threat from emerging diseases did not end with SARS,” said Dr Shigeru Omi, WHO Regional Director for the Western Pacific. “I am sure there will be similar and maybe even worse diseases to come.”
One of the lessons from SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), Dr Omi said, was that governments have to provide health systems with the resources needed to protect the public. “Many health systems were undermanned and under-resourced when SARS struck,” Dr Omi said. “The result was great human suffering, enormous fear and staggering economic losses.”
Dr Omi was speaking at a press conference here to launch a new book on what happened during the SARS outbreak, produced by the WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific. Dr Omi said he hoped the 300-page book, written largely by experts involved in the battle, would serve as “an enduring archival reference, giving future generations the guidance they will need when facing similar public health threats.”
Another lesson from SARS, Dr Omi said, was that transparency always is the best policy. “Because the outside world was not informed of what was going on in the initial stages of the outbreak, the virus managed to reach a tourist hotel in Hong Kong. From that moment on, international outbreak was inevitable. If we had known more about what was happening in those early weeks, things would probably have been different.”
SARS also served as a wake-up call on the need to change animal husbandry practices in Asia, Dr Omi said. It is still a mystery how the SARS virus jumped from animals to humans, he said, but it was clearly related to the conditions in some wet markets where wild animals are jammed together and slaughtered, thereby raising the chances of cross-infection and the emergence of new and dangerous pathogens.
“Today, we are seeing a similar problem with avian influenza, which has exposed the conditions in backyard farms in Asia and elsewhere. Raising chickens, ducks and pigs together, often in unhygienic conditions and close to human habitations, sets the scene for human infection with a new virus,” Dr Omi said.
By early July 2003, WHO declared that human-to-human transmission of the SARS virus had been broken, but only after a total of 8098 probable cases with nearly 800 deaths. Some 98% of the cases were in the Western Pacific Region, particularly China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Viet Nam.
More information can be found at http://www.wpro.who.int/publications/PUB_9290612134.htm
Illustrations from the book can be downloaded at http://www.wpro.who.int/media_centre/sars_book/
For more information and/or to request an interview, please contact: Mr Peter Cordingley Spokesman for the WHO Western Pacific Region Tel: +63-917-844-3688 E-mail: cordingleyp@wpro.who.int
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CONTACT: Mr Peter Cordingley, Spokesman for the WHO Western PacificRegion, +63-917-844-3688 or cordingleyp@wpro.who.int
Web site: http://www.who.int//
