SARS poses 'huge challenges' but global response offers hope, UN experts say

The outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) poses enormous public health challenges, but the international response offers hope for tackling them, experts said following a two-day United Nations meeting of epidemiologists in Geneva.

Speaking to the press on Saturday, the event's chairman, Professor Angus Nicoll of the United Kingdom's Health Protection Agency, drew attention to successes in Hong Kong and Canada in combating the spread of SARS. "I'd particularly like to emphasize the work that's been done, in a number of individual countries, of getting colleagues in hospitals, epidemiologists and laboratories, to work together in the current goal to try and get this infection – the first emerging infection of significance in the 21st century – back in its box where it belongs," he said.

At the same time, Professor Nicoll cautioned that "huge challenges" remain in stopping the spread of SARS, an atypical form of pneumonia.

"We still have a difficult situation to face in China," said Michael J. Ryan, the Coordinator of the UN World Health Organization (WHO) Global Alert and Response Programme. "We need to assist our Chinese colleagues in implementing the same measures in a very aggressive manner in China, as the Chinese authorities are doing," he added in response to press questions.

He also drew attention to a number of positive developments. "In country after country we have managed to break the cycle of transmission through the simple implementation of case finding, contact tracing, and isolation practices in hospitals," he said. "So I think the message coming out of this meeting is certainly one of great hope, it's one of celebration that the measures are working but also a call to action because we've got a lot more to do yet before we end this problem."