BEIJING: In the blaze of speeches, meetings and regulations about bird flu that China’s leaders have fired off in recent days, Sars has never been mentioned.

But memories of that epidemic two years ago are shadowing China’s increasingly urgent response to the latest health threat, say Chinese experts and journalists.

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which started in southern China in early 2003, killed 349 Chinese after officials hid or underplayed the flu-like illness, and China faced international censure after Sars spread to Hong Kong, then Asia and North America, killing hundreds more.

China dismissed two senior officials and blamed them for the cover-up.

On Friday, China announced that it was mobilizing a national ‘command headquarters’ under the country’s top emergency official, Hua Jianmin, to bring together six government and party departments and coordinate the fight against bird flu.

With rising global fears about the H5N1 avian flu virus, even parts of China’s state-dominated press have recently said habitual government secrecy and cumbersome bureaucracy could again undercut efforts to contain an epidemic.

Scientists fear H5N1 could mutate into a form communicable between people, triggering a pandemic that could kill millions and overwhelm health systems.

“At present, the information about avian influenza cases released to the public here is clearly too tardy and inadequate,” the outspoken business weekly, Caijing, said in an editorial that cited parallels with Sars.

While several Chinese experts interviewed also called for more official candour, they also said Chinese officials appeared to be reporting outbreaks of bird flu faster than they did during the Sars epidemic.

And central leaders have stepped in to ensure that disparate government agencies, especially the agriculture and health ministries, pull together.

“Sars is the model nobody wants to repeat. The public health system and official incentives have changed and I wouldn’t expect the same problems,” said Mao Shoulong, a government policy expert at the People’s University of China who has studied official reactions to both Sars and the bird flu.

China’s leaders have good reason to improve transparency. Bird flu has already killed more than 60 people in Asia, and China on Friday reported its fourth outbreak in birds in a month. But so far, the country has not had any cases of humans being infected with H5N1, officials have said.

If China does succumb to bird flu, it will not be for lack of official plans. On Tuesday, China’s Ministry of Agriculture issued an ‘emergency response’ for any bird flu epidemic among birds and livestock in coming months, joining dozens of similar documents from central and local bureaucracies.—Reuters