The Hindu : China forms quick-response system

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Apr 16, 2003

International

International

China forms quick-response system

By P. S. Suryanarayana

SINGAPORE April 15. China today announced that 64 persons had so far died of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) on the mainland since the outbreak of the disease. The total number of reported SARS cases was placed at 1,435, while an estimated 76.4 per cent of these cases were deemed to have recovered. The disease, with no definitive cure as of now, is said to have spread to five provinces and two autonomous regions of China besides Beijing and Shanghai cities.

With the epidemic having spread to several parts of the world, including Hong Kong and Singapore, the Chinese authorities today went into political overdrive to try and control the SARS outbreak. This follows the World Health Organisation's increasing articulation of global concerns about the state of China's preparedness to combat the disease, which is widely believed to have originated in that country's southern Guangdong province.

Another factor driving China's political activism in the fight against SARS is the anxiety that the disease might scare away foreign investors, besides lowering the earnings on tourism and other related economic activities, according to diplomatic observers in the Asia-Pacific region.

China's official stand is that it has emerged as the world's largest foreign investment destination, and its Commerce Ministry said on Monday that the country's Gross Domestic Product rose by 9.9 per cent in the first quarter of 2003, probably marking the economy's "best time in several years''.

A major political decision announced by China's State Council in Beijing today was the initiative to establish "a national quick response mechanism'' to deal with "public health emergencies''. The decision was taken at a meeting presided over by the Prime Minister, Wen Jiabao, on Monday. To be "directed" by the Central Government in Beijing, the "mechanism" would function within a legal framework to be formulated. "Adequate basic (medical) facilities'' and a "sound monitoring system'' would also be devised, it was underlined.

The Chinese President and General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, Hu Jintao, inspected the Disease Prevention and Control Centre in Guangdong province in the context of the efforts to contain SARS.

He called upon China's medical professionals to regard SARS control as an "important task'' as the disease could produce a "strong impact'' on the country's "overall process of reform and opening-up'' besides affecting the health and lives of the people.

On a separate front of topical interest, China today indicated that it had begun to formulate "a set of preventive measures in medicine'' in order to meet any "emergency" involving "nuclear terrorism'' against the country.

WHO's plea

A team of World Health Organization investigators is asking to visit Beijing military hospitals rumoured to hold unreported cases of the deadly SARS virus, a spokesman for the team said on Tuesday.

Such visits are a priority for the team, which is looking into how health authorities in the Chinese capital are handling severe acute respiratory syndrome, said a spokesman.

But he said it wasn't clear when such a visit might take place.

``I think that's one of the big things that needs to be done.''

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