The annual assembly of the World Health Organisation's 192 member states begins in Geneva today with the outbreak of SARS dominating the agenda in the first week.
The adoption of a landmark treaty to fight smoking will also feature highly.
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WHO officials have said they will try to take advantage of the presence of health ministers at the meeting to bolster international co-operation to tackle health problems and new diseases expected to emerge in the 21st century.
They said attempts to control the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) virus, which swiftly spread around the world after it emerged from China and Hong Kong several months ago, are a model for future efforts to stifle contagious diseases.
More than 590 people have died from SARS, with 7,600 cases in 29 countries since the pneumonia-like disease emerged for the first time, mainly in Asia.
The WHO expressed skepticism about a dramatic decline in the number of SARS cases in China after just 12 new infections were reported today, saying they had no idea how the figures were being reached.
"We're wary of these figures. We're not prepared yet to say that things are on a downward trend," the WHO's spokesman in Beijing said. "One of the things we're afraid of is too much exuberance and that things will lighten up too soon, and that we will regret that later."
The worst affected country in the world has seen a rapid decline in the number of new infections being reported from well over 100 per day 10 days ago to today's figure of just a dozen. In addition to the 12 new cases, which took the nationwide tally to 5,236, five people died to bring the national death toll to 289.
Delegates have been asked not to travel to Geneva if they have been in close contact with a SARS patient or been to a hospital treating the disease in the preceding ten days, the WHO said.
The assembly will be asked to adopt a new treaty imposing curbs on the advertising, marketing and sale of cigarettes and tobacco products, following four years of sometimes bitter negotiations.
AFP