ADB okays additional grant to combat SARS

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved additional grant funds of $3 million to help improve developing countries’ responses to future outbreaks of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and other emerging epidemics.

The supplementary funds, from ADB’s Japan Special Fund, financed by the Government of Japan, bring to $5 million the total committed to regional emergency assistance to combat the dreaded virus.

About $1 million of the supplementary technical assistance (TA) grant will meet expected demand for regional and country-specific emergency assistance for five high priority developing member countries (DMCs).

The remaining $2 million will finance a regional infectious-diseases "SWAT" team of four health professionals, to be based for three years at the Western Pacific regional office of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Manila.

The regional SARS outbreak earlier this year revealed weaknesses in public health systems in several countries. In response, ADB approved in May a grant of $2 million in emergency assistance to DMCs in public health surveillance, SARS prevention and control, public education, and improved capacity to assess the health and socioeconomic consequences of SARS.

Following government requests, the multilateral agency allocated all of the funds by June to support infection control programs in 14 countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Fiji Islands, Indonesia, Kyrgyz Republic, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Nepal, Mongolia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Viet- nam, and the Philippines.

It likewise agreed to support a regional proposal for Pacific island countries from the Secretariat of the Pacific Community and established a web site to provide technical information on SARS.

"The supplementary funds will help prevent any SARS resurgence in Asia by strengthening staff and institutional responses of the region’s public health services," said ADB’s senior health and nutrition specialist Joseph Hunt.

"The SARS team will ensure that the highest possible technical advice and training is available at short notice to any developing country threatened by a renewed SARS outbreak or other emerging infections that pose a public health crisis."

ADB will be the executing agency for the supplementary grant, while WHO will manage the four internationally recruited consultants over the three-year period.

Meanwhile, the activities to be undertaken will include:

• Strengthening overall communicable disease surveillance, laboratory diagnostic capacity, and surveillance and laboratory networks.

• Establishing a strong alert and response capability.

• Epidemiological training, covering general surveillance and response that will be vital to providing DMCs with their own expertise.

The SARS team will focus on infection control, epidemiology, public health surveillance, and laboratory development and upgrading to include Asia’s laboratories in the global network of surveillance institutions coordinated by WHO.

"While the team will focus on SARS, the underlying aim of the TA is to develop national resources to ensure self sufficiency in detecting and responding to any other emerging infectious diseases," Hunt points out. – Ted Torres