China has taken "very positive" efforts in mobilizing people to
fight severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), but the health
authorities need to do more to allay public fears, World Health
Organization (WHO) China representative Henk Bekedam told Xinhua in
Beijing Thursday.
The health authorities in Beijing should provide more details of
SARS patients and how they contracted the disease so as to reduce
unnecessary public panic, said Bekedam.
Anyone with a fever should go to a clinic and see a doctor,
regardless of whether they have SARS or not, instead of traveling
and going for work, he added.
While noting that in the last 10 to 20 years, China has not
invested enough in its health system, he believed that the fight
against SARS will lead to an improvement in the health system of
the country.
"So in three or four years China's health system will be able to
deal with all the health challenges in China," he said.
Also on Thursday, the experts from the WHO divided into three
groups to visit three designated hospitals for the treatment of
foreign SARS patients in Shanghai.
The hospitals were Shanghai Municipal Pneumonic Hospital, Shanghai
Municipal Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Xuhui
District CDC.
After being briefed by the Municipal Pneumonic Hospital staff, the
WHO experts tested nurses on how to confirm a high fever, how to
accurately investigate the disease, how to distribute patients and
how to take quarantine measures.
The WHO experts also discussed cases with the hospital experts,
focusing on timely and effective treatment of the disease according
to the clinical symptoms and diagnostic standards.
The six WHO experts arrived in Shanghai on Monday to evaluate the
status of SARS prevention and treatment and will finish on
Friday.
(Xinhua News Agency April 25, 2003)