Bill offers $278 million for global disease surveillance

5.45pm

WASHINGTON - Citing the ongoing outbreak of the deadly respiratory illness Sars, US senators on Thursday proposed spending US$150 million ($278 million) to strengthen the world's systems for detecting disease outbreaks.

The bill, which has the backing of leading senators including Massachusetts Democrat Edward Kennedy and was sponsored by Delaware Democratic Senator Joseph Biden, would help other countries detect and report outbreaks of both natural disease and attacks with biological weapons.

"This is an early warning system, like a radar system out there," Biden told a news conference.

The money would go to help pay for epidemiologists -- experts in disease patterns who would work in developing nations to spot patterns of illness. Grants would also pay for laboratory equipment to test for various pathogens as well as computers and telephones for sharing information.

Experts have been calling for such a system for years and have been working to put one together. The current epidemic of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars) sweeping Asia and affecting 20 countries globally is an example of why one is needed, said World Health Organisation infectious disease expert Dr David Heymann.

"We are building a ship as we are sailing," Heymann said.

"This is exactly the way the Sars epidemic came to be known." WHO had been trying to learn more about an early outbreak in China but because the Chinese authorities stayed quiet, they did not suspect the true consequences until authorities in Hong Kong and Vietnam notified WHO.

"We put out a worldwide alert," Heymann said. "Twenty countries now have Sars or suspected Sars, but none has the same level of outbreak (as China) because they were prepared."

Worldwide, more than 110 people have died of suspected Sars and nearly 3000 have been infected.

The money would be distributed by the US State Department, Biden said. The bill divides the cash into two payments, one in 2004 and one in 2005.

Biden said he chose US$150m based on "how much I thought I could get".

"I think what is really important is the world follows the US example," Heymann said. He said he hoped other G-8 nations -- Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia -- as well as Scandinavian countries would follow suit soon.

"So I think it is a very important action that will show the rest of the world that the United States is taking this seriously," he said.

Heymann has said that if China had acted sooner to alert the world, the Sars outbreak may have been contained.

"We believe now that China has opened up fully," Heymann told the news conference, and next time China is likely to co-operate more quickly. Scientists believe there will be a next time because most influenza epidemics originate in China.

Biden said Sars acted as a warning and as a catalyst.

"It is, unfortunately, an example of what happens when an infectious disease is not detected, or is detected and not communicated," Biden said.

He said the system would be simple once in place, allowing for example a rural doctor who sees a case of suspected smallpox to recognise it and immediately alert WHO and the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

"Can you imagine if we knew for certain there had been a smallpox outbreak in Haiti? All the alarms would go off," Biden said. The CDC and WHO would spring into action. But, he said, imagine an outbreak of smallpox went undetected for six weeks.

"Now (smallpox) would not just be in Haiti -- it's in Chicago and London or wherever," Biden said.

This is similar to what happened with Sars in China, which was not reported widely until March, although the first suspected victims became ill in November. By then, Sars had spread to Hong Kong, Vietnam, Canada and elsewhere.

- REUTERS