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| China closes in on SARS |
| CCTV.COM 2003-04-05 10:04:57 |
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China says the country's medical professionals have contributed remarkably to setting the diagnostic standards for SARS. On Friday, officials from China's health department gave a detailed account of the work they have done to study and control the disease and said they are now close to identifying the cause of the epidemic.
At a press conference on Friday, officials from China's disease prevention and control center said China has made great contributions to global efforts in fighting the deadly disease, SARS.
Li Liming, director of China Disease Prevention & Control Center said, "When the first WHO expert group started to work with us a month ago and heard our diagnostic standards, they thought the standards of SARS set by WHO at that time did not seem appropriate. So they suggested that WHO adopt China's standards for atypical pneumonia. This is the first contribution China's medical professionals made to the world in treating this epidemic, that is, we set the diagnostic standards. The second contribution is that the medical professionals in Guangdong Province provided systematic treatment measures with their own clinical practices when the cause of the disease was still not identified. The measures are supportive treatment methods supplemented by anti－poison and anti－virus methods. Such methods have won recognition and high marks from the WHO experts."
Director Li introduced the five procedures normally adopted in the process of investigating an outbreak of an unidentified epidemic:
1. Identify disease and whether there has been an outbreak or spread
2. Find possible causes and take corresponding measures
3. Control the epidemic
4. Identify causes
5. Pin down causes, provide policy report for future prevention and treatment
He said China is now in the fourth step and close to the final stage.
Director Li said, "The identification of causes of an epidemic must meet three conditions. The first is we must be able to separate and reproduce the agent. Now I can tell you we have separated and grown the chlamydia－like particle－like virus of this disease. The second condition is that the serological antibody must react to the agent. We have experimented with 30 serum samples from recovering patients, 29 of them tested positive for the agent. We will experiment with more samples to collect more serological proof. The third condition is to establish a model on animals. That is to transplant the agent into animals. If the animals contract the same symptoms, then the cause is identified."
Li added that experiments have shown the cause of the epidemic meets the first two conditions. But he said until it satisfies the third one, doctors still cannot pinpoint the cause.
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Editor: Inner Wu CCTV.com
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