China, which was accused of covering up early cases of SARS and paving the way for a global epidemic of the killer virus, is showing a willingness to report outbreaks of emerging infectious diseases, a World Health Organization official said on Sunday.
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome is believed to have begun in southern China in late 2002, though the international community only learned of the emerging disease when it spread months later to neighboring parts of Asia.
The virus infected more than 8,000 people last winter and killed nearly 800 around the world. Authorities in China, the world’s most populous nation, have reported a handful of cases of the flu-like illness this year.
Improved reporting
In a press conference on the opening day of the International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases in Atlanta, Dr. David Heymann said Beijing had responded to international pressure to report infectious disease outbreaks.
“China has reported SARS cases when it has had them this year, and it is reporting its avian (bird) flu outbreaks,” Heymann, who is heading up the WHO’s polio-eradication campaign, said.
But Heymann added that more needed to be done to make sure that all nations adopted a “good neighbor” policy when experiencing outbreaks of diseases that could quickly spread across borders.
Other scientists attending the conference in Atlanta noted that it was important for public health officials around the world not to let the emergence of exotic diseases distract them from more established infectious diseases.
Dr. James Hughes, director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s national center for infectious diseases, said AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria were among the diseases that continuing to require attention and resources.
The 'new normal'
The infectious disease arena has become more crowded in recent years with the emergence of West Nile virus, monkeypox and a host of other illnesses.
Officials said progress was being made, especially in areas such as polio eradication, but warned the public not to expect emerging infectious diseases to simply disappear.
“The good old days are gone. This is the new normal,” CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding told delegates in a keynote speech.
Gerberding, who noted that many of the new infectious diseases had begun or been transmitted through contact with animals, said health officials, policy makers and the public needed to change the way they responded to such events.
