WHO confident Chinese SARS cases under control

A representative of the World Health Organisation (WHO) in China says she is optimistic the latest outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) can be controlled quickly.

A representative of the World Health Organisation (WHO) in China says she is optimistic the latest outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) can be controlled quickly.China’s Health Ministry is investigating at least five new suspected cases.All are linked to a patient who worked at a SARS research lab in Beijing.The WHO’s SARS team leader in Beijing, Dr Julie Hall, has described the outbreak as a setback.However she says Chinese officials are showing the capacity to contain it.”What we have seen is that once the alarm was raised we’ve seen a very efficient system swing into action,” she said.”Extensive contact tracing, the cases themselves have been put into isolation and hopefully the chain of transmission can be broken very quickly.”