World Health Organization (WHO) Director General Gro Harlem Brundtland said Sunday that the spreading SARS epidemic "can still be contained," calling the disease the "first global epidemic of the 21st century."
The international community still has a "window of opportunity to avoid the virus becoming endemic, such as flu and HIV... to contain it -- lessen it where it is, and stop it spreading," Brundtland told BBC's Breakfast with Frost television program.
"We have a chance to do it now if we work together globally, across the countries, and do what is necessary to control the outbreak," she said.
"Meanwhile unless every country takes seriously that there is achallenge...we will not have done the right thing with the first epidemic of this century," Brundtland said.
Strict new measures were being implemented in Asia, at the heart of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak, she said.
Meanwhile, she said advocating tough action such as advising against travel to Toronto, Canada, was not excessive.
"We are doing what is prudent and necessary...before (the disease) becomes global and constant," she said. "If this outbreakreaches poor, undeveloped parts of Africa, we are in trouble."
SARS has claimed about 300 lives worldwide and infected about 5,000 since it emerged late last year. It has no known cure and has been carried to more than 20 countries by travelers.
(Xinhua News Agency April 28, 2003)
