Date:24/04/2003 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2003/04/24/stories/2003042404691100.htm

National

Centre to discuss SARS with IMA

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI April 23. The Centre proposes to hold an inter-ministerial meeting with representatives of Home, Civil Aviation and other Ministries concerned and a conclave with representatives of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) on Thursday to devise measures to prevent the spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), a Union Health Ministry spokesperson said today.

Acknowledging that this would be the first formal meeting with the IMA, a collective body of private medical practitioners, the Director-General of Health Services, S.P. Agarwal, however, emphasised that the Ministry had been in constant touch with the IMA considering that private doctors have a big role to play in containing the disease.

He said the results of the tests done on the five persons who were in direct contact with the first confirmed SARS case in the country — a marine engineer in Goa — had proved negative.Efforts were on to trace the persons who had come in contact with the 29-year old woman from China, who was admitted to the Infectious Diseases Hospital here on Tuesday after she developed cough.