China holds the key to solving many questions crucial to global control of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). The disease appears to have originated in Guangdong Province, and the causative agent, SARS coronavirus, is likely to have originated from an animal host, perhaps sold in public markets. Epidemiologic findings, integral to defining an animal-human linkage, may then be confirmed by laboratory studies; once animal host(s) are confirmed, interventions may be needed to prevent further animal-to-human transmission. Community seroprevalence studies may help determine the basis for the decline in disease incidence in Guangdong Province after February 2002. China will also be able to contribute key data about how the causative agent is transmitted and how it is evolving, as well as identifying pivotal factors influencing disease outcome. There must be support for systematically addressing these fundamental questions in China and rapidly disseminating results.

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Health security in the Asia Pacific Region is continuously threatened by emerging diseases and public health emergencies. In recent years, the Region has been an epicentre for many emerging diseases, resulting in substantial negative impacts on health, social and economic development. As the Region is home to more than 50% of the world population, true global public health security depends to a large degree upon how successful this Region is in developing and sustaining functional national and regional systems and capacities for managing emerging diseases and acute public health events and emergencies.Tremendous efforts have been made by individual countries and the international community to confront emerging disease threats in recent years, but the need for a common regional strategic framework has been recognized by countries and areas in the Asia Pacific, the World Health Organization, donors and partner agencies. To address this need, an updated Asia Pacific Strategy for Emerging Diseases, or APSED (2010), has been developed, aiming to strategically build sustainable national and regional capacities and partnerships to ensure public health security through preparedness planning, prevention, early detection and rapid response to emerging diseases and other public health emergencies. The Strategy calls for collective responsibility and actions to address the shared regional health security threat with a greater emphasis on preparedness-driven investments in health security. APSED (2010) serves as a road map to guide all countries and areas in the region towards meeting their core capacity requirements under the International Health Regulations (2005) to ensure regional and global health security