ASEAN excludes China, WHO reps from Bangkok SARS summit

Asian Economic News, April 21, 2003

PHNOM PENH, April 18 Kyodo

Leaders from the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will meet in Bangkok on April 29 to discuss issues related to severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), but representatives from China and the World Health Organization (WHO) are not invited, Cambodian Foreign Ministry spokesman Chum Sounry said Friday.

Cambodia, chairman of the ASEAN Standing Committee, said a report in the Thai newspaper The Nation quoting Thai officials as saying that a senior official from China and WHO representatives will attend the meeting was wrong.

Chum Sounry told Kyodo News the meeting was specifically arranged for ASEAN leaders, together with their health ministers and ministers in charge of immigration, to discuss the SARS situation in the region.

The meeting is aimed at taking national and collective measures to deal with SARS, he said.

Four ASEAN countries have recorded SARS deaths -- Singapore 13, Vietnam five, Thailand two, and Malaysia one, according to WHO.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, who will leave for Bangkok on Monday, has repeatedly said Cambodia has no SARS cases so far and has instituted preventive measures at most of the entry gates into the country, especially at the international airports in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap.

SARS has killed at least 159 people worldwide and more than 3,200 patients have been recorded as probable SARS cases, according to WHO.

ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Asian economies, especially in their tourism sectors, have been hard-hit by fallout from the SARS virus and authorities in many countries have already said they expect economic growth to be slower than previously expected this year because of SARS.