Singapore's Minister for Home Affairs Wong Kan Seng Wednesday urged
every Singaporean to exercise social responsibility and play role
in the implementation of the national strategy against the severe
acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) so as to preserve normalcy in
daily life.
Speaking at a press conference, Wong Kan Seng, minister for home
affairs and chairman of ministerial committee on SARS, said, "If
everyone exercises social responsibility and plays his part in
taking recommended precautions, we can go on with our daily
life."
"To achieve this, we must all understand and play our role in the
overall strategy against SARS," he added.
He
defined Singapore's national strategy against SARS as "isolate,
ring fence and contain strategy" and said the strategy's three
prongs are to detect and isolate SARS cases as early as possible,
to ring-fence detected or suspected cases and to adopt robust
screening and infection control procedures, and to contain the
spread of the virus and guard vigilantly against outbreak in the
wider community.
Commenting on wide expectation for official help from the
government, Wong said that the government will unveil relief
measures on Thursday to help companies that are affected by the
fallout from the SARS virus outbreak.
He
said that actions at individual and national level are still not
enough because SARS is a global problem.
"To fully contain it, international cooperation is essential- not
just to government-to-government collaboration, but international
cooperation at multiple levels," he stressed.
As
of April 15, there has been a total of 162 SARS cases reported in
Singapore with four new cases detected Tuesday. Of the total, 13
have died, 64 remain hospitalized and 85 have recovered from the
disease and have been discharged from hospital.
(Xinhua News Agency April 16, 2003)
