ADB grants $4m to fight SARS

ADB grants $4m to fight SARS

Agence France-Presse, Manila

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved technical
assistance grants totaling US$4 million to prevent the spread of
SARS in China and several other countries in Asia-Pacific.

A US$2 million grant will go to preventing the spread of
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in the Chinese provinces
of Ningxia, Qinghai, Xinjiang and Yunnan, ADB officials said.

A second grant, also worth $2 million, will support similar
efforts in other Asia-Pacific countries.

Geert Van Der Linden, special adviser to the ADB president,
said that the second grant could be increased to $5 million if
there is a great need and if they find the money is being used
properly.

ADB director Bradford Philips stressed that any ADB member
country can submit proposals for projects to be funded by the
grant, including countries which still have not recorded any
cases of SARS.

So far, Laos has already started negotiations for some
funding.

Other countries were keeping their negotiations under wraps to
avoid bad publicity, Philips said, remarking "you don't want to
have a SARS campaign when there is no SARS."

ADB senior director William Fraser also stressed that there
were few SARS cases in the four Chinese provinces covered by the
grant to China but that the ADB believed they warranted special
attention because they bordered Central Asian countries.

The ADB officials said that the grants were intended to keep
SARS from reaching new areas and to prepare areas to deal with
the threat.

They said there was no need for panic over SARS as experience
showed it can be contained.

China has been the hardest-hit by the SARS crisis which has
claimed over 700 lives and resulted in more than 8,000 infections
worldwide.

The ADB had warned recently that if SARS was not brought under
control by end-June, economic growth could be affected.

It said the damage to China and the other Northeast Asian
economies would be $8.8 billion if the problem was not contained
by mid-year while the Southeast Asian economies could lose $3.2
billion.

Philips said that economic growth in the first quarter of the
year had been good. The SARS outbreak was first detected in China
in November last year but became much more apparent in March.