"The data we've got during the three days of staying here is much
more than we expected," said Dr. Robert F. Breiman, head of a
five-member World Health Organization (WHO) expert team in
Guangdong Province studying the situation of SARS.
They were impressed with the work of the local government in
Guangdong, south China, on the control of SARS (severe acute
respiratory syndrome), said Breiman at press conference
Saturday.
The hospitals they visited have done a remarkable job and they
follow the procedures and techniques that are used by Asian
countries to control the virus, according to the WHO expert.
The local government and hospitals have a job to protect medical
staff and health workers, he said.
"We encourage scientists and medical experts here to release their
huge amount of research results not only to China but also to
international journals.
He
hoped that local scientists and experts should pay special
attention to the highly-infectious patients.
Talking about the origin of the virus, Breiman said, "We probably
won't know for a while what the origin of this virus is."
"We can't really say without further information where this
actually originated," he said, "It's really too early to tell where
it came from."
"It's always possible it came from somewhere else, it's possible it
came from here, we'll just have to wait for more information to
come in," the expert said.
At
this stage, their work is merely to collect data and analyze the
data, Breiman said. "In fact, we don't know where is the origin of
this virus," he added.
Alan Schnur, another WHO expert, said that for personal health, the
risk is pretty. "If we compare the number of patients with the
populations of Guangzhou and Hong Kong, the percentage is pretty
small," he said.
"As to public health, the medical staff members and health workers
are more likely to be infected by SARS. So we should take necessary
and immediate measures to guarantee their safety." "There is risk,
but it is pretty small. That's why we don't wear masks," he
said.
The WHO delegation will stay in Guangdong until April 8.
(Xinhua News Agency April 6, 2003)