WHO Official Tells World to Prepare For New Diseases

WHO Official Tells World to Prepare For New Diseases

May 18, 2006

    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.

    (Logo: 
http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20040610/CNTH001LOGO )

    "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, please contact:

     Mr Peter Cordingley
     Spokesman for the WHO Western Pacific Region
     Tel:    [phone] 
     E-mail: [e-mail]

SOURCE  World Health Organization