Kuala Lumpur, May 04: The World Health Organisation (WHO) has accepted Malaysia's proposal on a reclassification of SARS-affected countries to better reflect the situation in those countries, a senior official said. "Malaysia had asked who for a reclassification of affected countries so that the risks linked to these countries are consistent with the dangers existing there," health deputy director general Ismail Merican said yesterday.
Under the three-tier classification, countries hit by the epidemic are grouped under low transmission, medium transmission and high transmission. Ismail said low transmission meant that it was due to imported probable cases that had produced only one generation of local probable cases.
"This means that a person gets a disease from overseas, comes home and then affects a close contact. The country grouped under this classification is Mongolia," he said.
Canada, Singapore and Taiwan were among countries classified under medium transmission, which involved more than one generation of SARS contact, said Dr Ismail. "The high-transmission classification has a three-plus pattern or other than which is described under low- and medium-transmission classifications. The affected countries are China and Hong Kong," he said.
Malaysia did not fall under any of these categories as it did not have any local transmission, he said. Bureau Report