Military

DATE=5/6/03

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

NUMBER=2-302926

TITLE=E-U / SARS (L)

BYLINE=ROGER WILKISON

DATELINE=BRUSSELS

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: The head of the World Health Organization says it is too early to say whether the worldwide SARS epidemic has reached its peak. But Gro Harlem Brundtland says the disease can be contained and eliminated. V-O-A correspondent Roger Wilkison reports from Brussels, where Ms. Brundtland met Tuesday with European Union health ministers.

TEXT: Ms. Brundtland told reporters that SARS -- Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome -- has been eliminated in Vietnam and that it is receding in Canada. But she says it has not yet peaked in China.

The disease has infected nearly seven-thousand people, most of them in China, and killed more than 400.

Europe has so far been spared from a widespread outbreak of the disease. Only 33 probable cases of the virus have been reported in eight European countries, none of them fatal.

Ms. Brundtland says European health authorities deserve credit for taking appropriate prevention measures to keep the epidemic at bay. But she says nothing should be taken for granted.

/// BRUNDTLAND ACT ///

It's important that all health ministers around the world and governments, certainly at higher levels, think very seriously that we have a window of opportunity. We can still contain the first new disease of this century and make it go away, as it did in Vietnam.

/// END ACT ///

E-U health ministers held an emergency meeting to discuss how best they can coordinate policies to prevent SARS from taking hold in Europe.

At present, there are no common E-U rules on issuing disease control warnings or even on screening passengers flying into the union from SARS-affected areas like China.

One idea, propounded by E-U Health Commissioner David Byrne and supported by Ms. Brundtland, is that the union should set up an E-U-wide agency for disease prevention and control similar to the U-S Centers for Disease Control.

That proposal also received backing Tuesday from Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis, whose country holds the rotating E-U presidency. Mr. Simitis says that with free movement of goods and people the norm throughout most of the European Union, the bloc must come up with a coordinated way to avoid the spread of SARS and other diseases.

With the E-U scheduled to expand from 15 to 25 members next year, top health officials from future member states were also involved in Tuesday's discussions. (Signed)

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