World Heath Organization (WHO) experts expressed their confidence in Beijing Tuesday in the statistics of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) cases provided by China.
Responding to a reporter's query at a press conference, Henk Bekedam, the WHO representative in China, said that the WHO team in China was using the same database as China's health departments and sharing information with their Chinese colleagues.
Daniel Chin, another WHO expert, also confirmed that the WHO expert team has access to any information in China's health departments, stressing that he felt very confident of accomplishing his mission in China and there was no reason to say that China was hiding the number of SARS cases.
WHO expert Keiji Fukuda said that China's surveillance and health care system has been much improved and he understood that it could be very difficult for China to find back data that might have been misreported due to the knowledge and personnel restrictions when SARS first appeared in China.
The WHO does appreciate the cooperation that China has offered in the combat against the epidemic, Fukuda stressed.
(Xinhua News Agency May 14, 2003)
