Shanghai will "sincerely cooperate" with the World Health Organization (WHO) and is seeking assistance from China's Ministry of Health and WHO to combat severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), said Shanghai Deputy Mayor Yang Xiaodu here Monday.
Yang made the remarks while briefing a WHO team on the city's prevention and treatment work on SARS. The WHO team arrived in Shanghai Monday morning to inspect measures on the disease.
The team consists of six WHO scientists -- James Maguire, Wolfgang Preiser, Keigi Fukuda, Daniel Chin, Li Ailan, as well as Xu Ruiheng, an official of the Guangdong Provincial Center for Disease Prevention and Control.
The team, invited by Shanghai municipal government, kicked off their four-day inspection at the airport minutes after their arrival, noting the waiting hall had been disinfected and all staff wore masks.
Yang briefed them Monday afternoon on Shanghai's prevention and treatment of SARS, saying the city, which had reported two SARS cases by April 20, had closely monitored the information issued by the WHO since February and diagnosed SARS patients according to WHO standards.
Maguire said that Shanghai's prevention work was very important for such an international hub and the city's advantage was its relatively good medical and sanitation system.
The team visited the city's emergency medical center Monday afternoon and is scheduled to visit disease control centers and hospitals at municipal, district and community levels in the next three days.
The WHO experts will also confer with local medical experts on containing and treating the disease and have received documents in both Chinese and English on Shanghai's prevention and treatment work, including a list of Shanghai's hospitals and sanitation stations.
(Xinhua News Agency April 22, 2003)
