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WHO to hold meeting on SARS
New Delhi, Apr 27: WHO is planning to hold an international scientific meeting in Geneva to review the various developments and analyse the questions surrounding the SARS epidemic even as the number of people carrying the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) virus in India went up to seven and the world figure neared 5,000 mark.
New Delhi, Apr 27: WHO is planning to hold an international scientific meeting in Geneva to review the various developments and analyse the questions surrounding the SARS epidemic even as the number of people carrying the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) virus in India went up to seven and the world figure neared 5,000 mark.
The meeting, to be organised during 17-18 June, would review the epidemiological management and laboratory findings on SARS, World Health Organisation said.
Its website said that key participants in the response to the current outbreaks and other public health authorities would be invited to the meeting. The meeting is likely to throw light on the new disease which has emerged as a challenge to scientific community. In India, most of the cases have been asymptomatic or have been accompanied with low grade symptoms, which also raises the question of possibility of transmission by people who do not have symptoms but carry the virus, health experts said. "The virulence (how badly the virus causes disease) may depend on a number of factors like age of the patient and the viral load," Prof Anoop Misra from the Centre for Human Nutrition, the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Centre at Dallas, said.
For example, an elderly person has more chances of contracting any disease than a younger person. "But, since the epidemic is just evolving we do not know more details as yet," he said. "Whether SARS virus will cause disease in all the persons it infects is not known since not all contacts of the patients have developed disease," Misra said.
Bureau Report
Its website said that key participants in the response to the current outbreaks and other public health authorities would be invited to the meeting. The meeting is likely to throw light on the new disease which has emerged as a challenge to scientific community. In India, most of the cases have been asymptomatic or have been accompanied with low grade symptoms, which also raises the question of possibility of transmission by people who do not have symptoms but carry the virus, health experts said. "The virulence (how badly the virus causes disease) may depend on a number of factors like age of the patient and the viral load," Prof Anoop Misra from the Centre for Human Nutrition, the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Centre at Dallas, said.
For example, an elderly person has more chances of contracting any disease than a younger person. "But, since the epidemic is just evolving we do not know more details as yet," he said. "Whether SARS virus will cause disease in all the persons it infects is not known since not all contacts of the patients have developed disease," Misra said.
Bureau Report