SARS Experts Want Tighter Testing Process

ABCNEWS.com : SARS Experts Want Tighter Testing Process: "SARS Experts Want Tighter Testing Process

The Associated Press

LONDON Oct. 22 — Experts planning how the world should respond if SARS returns proposed Wednesday that diagnostic testing procedures be tightened to ensure more accurate results and reduce the number of false alarms.

Scientists meeting this week at the World Health Organization headquarters in Geneva said they agreed that in most places, when patients go to their doctors with an apparently inexplicable bout of pneumonia, SARS testing should be done as a last resort.

"With influenza season coming, the last thing we want to do is have a number of false positives, so we hope that not everyone would be tested for SARS," said the meeting's leader, Dr. John MacKenzie of WHO. SARS testing is still under development and false positive readings do occur.

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What controls and process do you have in your organization for monitoring employee sick days and illness? This is a threat to the organization that is now more of a "Code Red" than good old strep throat or a bad cold. A comprehensive system for managing global absences, travel threats See iJet and WHO alerts need to be correlated in real-time.