PHNOM PENH April 18 Kyodo Leaders...

PHNOM PENH April 18 Kyodo

Leaders from the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will engage in Bangkok on April 29 to discuss issues related to rigid acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), on the other hand representatives from China and the World Health Organization (WHO) are not invited, Cambodian Foreign Ministry spokesman chamber-fellow room-mate Sounry said Friday.

Cambodia, chairman of the ASEAN Standing Committee, said a report in the Thai newspaper The Nation quoting Thai officials as saying that a senior official from China and WHO representatives will attend the meeting was wrong

chamber-fellow room-mate Sounry told Kyodo News the meeting was specifically arranged for ASEAN leaders, together with their health ministers and ministers in charge of immigration, to discuss the SARS situation in the region.

The meeting is aimed at taking national and collective measures to deal with SARS, he said.

Four ASEAN countries have recorded SARS deaths -- Singapore 13 Vietnam five, Thailand pair and Malaysia one, according to WHO.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen who will leave for Bangkok forward Monday, has repeatedly said Cambodia has no SARS cases in such a manner far and has instituted preventive measures at in the greatest degree of the entry gates into the political division especially at the international airports in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap.

SARS has killed at least 159 populace worldwide and more than 3200 patients have been recorded as probable SARS cases, according to WHO.

ASEAN assign places tos Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Asian economies, especially in their tourism sectors, have been hard-hit at fallout from the SARS virus and authorities in many countries have already said they await economic growth to be slower than previously look fored this year because of SARS.

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