HIV/AIDS bigger threat than bio-weapons By Zhang Feng (China Daily) Updated: 2005-04-06 06:35
Emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases are the biggest biological
threat to modern China, experts said yesterday.
Speaking to the China Daily from the International Workshop on Infectious
Diseases and Bio-safety which opened in Beijing yesterday, deputy director of
the Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology under the academy of of Military
Medical Sciences of China, Cao Wuchun said natural diseases were more dangerous
than any man-made threat.
"Although we must keep alert and make consistent preparations against the
intentional use of bioweapons and bioterrorism, the naturally occuring outbreaks
of infectious diseases are still the biggest enemy," he said.
Currently, China is developing technologies and equipment to resist possible
bioattacks Cao said.
Innovations such as devices which warn of biological agents, are vital for
national defence and also for large public events like the Beijing 2008 Olympic
Games, Cao added.
However, China is also facing new challenges from emerging infectious
diseases, such as the influenza pandemic, HIV/AIDS, SARS (severe acute
respiratory syndrome), viral hepatitis and even Ebola, said Wang Yu, director of
the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.
Addressing the Beijing workshop, Wang said that since 1973, about 40 new
pathogens, half of which are caused by viruses, have been discovered.
Although SARS has been absent for nearly one year, it is still too early to
conclude that the SARS virus has been eradicated, said Zhong Nanshan, director
of Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Diseases.
SARS killed almost 800 people, mostly in Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland,
in a worldwide outbreak that infected more than 8,000 by the end of 2003.
Among the emerging infectious diseases, the hepatitis B virus infects 120
million people, including 30 million patients in China.
And re-emerging infectious diseases are posing an increasing threat to
people's health, Wang said.
For example, China now has 820,000 patients suffering from the parasitic
blood condition schistosomiasis and a further 40 million people are at risk of
contracting the disease.
The country also sees 1.3 million new tuberculosis cases each year, Wang
added.
According to Cao, biological threats can also come from the accidental
leakage of pathogens from laboratories.
A SARS case in 2004 was found to have come from a laboratory in Beijing.
Since 2003, the Chinese Govern-ment has strengthened procedures at various
levels to safeguard public health and protect against biothreats, Cao said.
(China Daily 04/06/2005 page2)
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