WHO launches anti-Sars campaign

World Health Organisation teams gathered yesterday in the Chinese capital, Beijing, to launch their campaign to halt a chain of deadly severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) infections days before hundreds of millions of people set off for the May Day holiday.

China has isolated more than 700 people since a laboratory leak led to the first death from Sars after last year's outbreak killed nearly 800 people worldwide.

It has reported two diagnosed and six suspected Sars cases in the province of Anhui and Beijing.

The WHO teams, including experts in epidemiology, virology, infection control and lab bio-safety, will head within a day or two to Anhui and the lab where the transmission chain is suspected to have started, a WHO spokesman said.

The Anhui provincial health department said nearly 150 people had been confirmed as having had contact with a Sars patient in Anhui. They were all in normal condition.