Beijing, Oct 24: The World Health Organisation is urging China to expand an intensive monitoring programme for health workers and areas hit hard this year by SARS to ensure that any new outbreak is caught early, a WHO official said today. China has created a "very good system" nationwide to detect infectious diseases since the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, said Dr Henk Bekedam, WHO's Beijing representative.

But who wants to expand a programme that monitors health workers and patients at a group of hospitals in Beijing and the provinces of Guangdong and Shanxi, he said. Those areas accounted for most of the 349 deaths reported on China's mainland. "In these areas, we do believe there is a need for an enhanced surveillance system," Bekedam told in an interview. "That's where you expect it to come back, and there you have to have an additional effort so that you catch it as early as possible."

Bureau Report