| MEP calls for Europe-wide response to SARS A Europe-wide strategy is needed to slow the spread of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome across the EU, Green MEP Caroline Lucas has warned. Dr Lucas, a member of the European Parliament's Public Health Committee, has called on the Commission to co-ordinate responses where individual member states actions' are deemed inadequate. She also asked health commissioner David Byrne to require all EU members to test aircraft air-conditioning filters for SARS-type micro-organisms. Such a test is available, and takes less than four hours to produce a result. According to latest figures, 32 cases of the disease have been confirmed in the EU, but tackling the epidemic remains a responsibility for individual member states. "If responding to SARS is not coordinated at EU level Europe's defence against the disease risks being defined by the least effective national measures," said Dr Lucas. "Given the ease of travel within the EU the protection measures taken by any one state will have a cross-boundary effect. Protection will be defined by the lowest common denominator," she added. "With human lives at stake this is simply not acceptable. The Commission and member states have accepted this logic with regard to Foot and Mouth Disease, they must now do so for SARS too."
•Date:
1st May 2003 •Region:W.Europe / UK •Type:
Article •Topic: SARS
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