BRIEFING ON SARS BY WHO COMMUNICABLE DISEASES EXPERT DAVID HEYMANN, SCHEDULED FOR 15 APRIL

Note to Correspondents

BRIEFING ON SARS BY WHO COMMUNICABLE DISEASES EXPERT DAVID HEYMANN,

SCHEDULED FOR 15 APRIL

World Health Organization (WHO) Communicable Diseases Executive Director David Heymann will deliver a briefing on the newly identified Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), at a 15 April meeting co-sponsored by the WHO and the United NationsEconomic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

Dr. Heymann will review the discovery of the virus that likely causes SARS, trends inepidemiology, the status of clinical care, new routes of transmission, the success of containment efforts in Viet Nam, and China's new commitment to the international fight against SARS.

The meeting, which is open to the press, begins at 1:15 p.m. in Conference Room 1at United NationsHeadquarters and is chaired by ECOSOC President Gert Rosenthal (Guatemala).

Dr. Heymann will also speak to the press and answer questions immediately following the 15 April daily noon briefing, held in room S-226 at UN Headquarters.

Reporters without United Nations press credentials who wish to attend either the press briefing or the ECOSOC meeting should fax a letter of assignment to

1-212-963-4642, and follow up with a call to the UN Media Accreditation Unit at

1-212-963-7164.

The WHO acted quickly in the first seven days since issuing a global alert on the new disease.  Within this time, according to WHO officials, experts were mobilized and transported to Hanoi hospitals, along with protective equipment and medical supplies; another team of epidemiologists and infection control specialists was dispatched to Hong Kong to help track the outbreak to its source; and health authorities around the world were alerted, resulting in the identification of new cases and a state of preparedness that has meant that doctors, nurses and hospitals in much of the world have not been crippled as they had been in Hong Kong and Hanoi.

                                    - 2 -                  Note No. 5789

                                                            11 April 2003

The WHO also has created a virtual research centre, drawing together the efforts of 11 world-class laboratories in nine countries.   Other crucial steps include the development of a diagnostic test and the establishment of a global network allowing physicians treating SARS to share clinical data on treatments and outcomes.

For more information, contact Celinda Verano of the World Health Organization, tel. 1-212-963-6000, e-mail: verano@un.org; or Tim Wall of the Development Section of the United Nations Department of Public Information,

tel. 1-212-963-5851, e-mail: wallt@un.org.

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