WHO set to convene global scientific meeting to review findings on SARS

The United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) is set to convene scientists from around the globe to seek a clearer picture of the infectious disease Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), the potential of which was still poorly understood, a top UN expert said today.

Participants at the meeting, to be held Thursday and Friday in Geneva, will review the epidemiological, clinical management and laboratory findings on SARS. These key leaders in the response to the current outbreak and other public health authorities will also discuss appropriate global control strategies.

"What we are talking about is a new disease and therefore what's dangerous about this is we don't know its potential," David Heymann, Executive Director of WHO's Communicable Diseases, told the press at the UN Headquarters in New York. "We don't know whether this will spread throughout the world and become a constant threat to healthcare workers and then as it spreads from them to their families and communities. So the potential is important."

Dr. Heymann said the future of the disease would not be fully understood until it becomes clearer how the epidemic is evolving in China. He said WHO teams are now collaborating with the Chinese Government to assess the situation there and above all to have access to the four months of data from Guangdong Province, where the epidemic is believed to have originated sometime last November.

"Through this confidence building we believe that now we are a full partner with China in the investigation. We believe that information will come in the next three to four weeks," Dr. Heymann stated, adding that China has now raised the disease to a high political and health level.

Asked if earlier access to Chinese documentation would have made a difference in the trajectory of SARS, Dr. Heymann said it was not clear, though he believed there would have been a better chance of doing so then than there is today.

"The Chinese Government is now working very closely with us. We hope that this will set a precedence in China, because infectious diseases have no borders. An infectious disease in one country today, when there is rapid transport around the world, is an infectious disease problem for any country," he added.