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Pressure on China over SARS bug
HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- Pressure is mounting on Chinese health authorities to increase cooperation with international efforts to control the spread of the deadly SARS virus. The virus is believed by many experts to have originated in the heavily populated southern province of Guangdong, but international disease control experts say that it has taken several days to obtain official permission to travel to the area. A team of medical scientists from the World Health Organization has gathered in Beijing to examine data provided by the Chinese authorities on the spread of the disease and coordinate efforts to control it. However, although figures on deaths and infections in Guangdong in March have been released, the data has been slow to materialize and the promised daily government updates on new cases are still yet to appear. Without that data, experts say, it is all the more important to obtain timely first-hand information on the disease -- something seen as essential to finding a solution to controlling the outbreak. "The more rapidly you respond, as we've found time and time again, the more rapidly we come up with prevention and control strategies and appropriate treatments," Dr Robert Breiman of the WHO team in Beijing told CNN. Furthermore, health experts say, Chinese media are not reporting enough about the disease, leaving the public poorly informed about the virus and how to protect themselves against it. Chinese officials insist they have nothing to hide, but the slow release of data and the apparent reluctance to allow experts to travel outside of Beijing has led to criticism from overseas that China is dragging its feet on the issue. China's response in the face of a growing global health alert has caused some to compare the reaction with Beijing's clumsy handling of the HIV outbreak in the 1990s. Then, health experts say, officials refused for years to acknowledge the scale of the problem, allowing the virus to spread rapidly through the population. The government has yet to issue an emergency decree on the virus and only issued guidelines to doctors for dealing with the disease on Tuesday. Already China's handling of health crisis has tarnished its reputation overseas with the effects beginning to be felt in the economy. Tour groups and conferences have scrapped planned events inside China, the Rolling Stones have called off landmark concerts and dozens of flights into and out of China have been cancelled. -- CNN Beijing Bureau Chief Jaime FlorCruz contributed to this report
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