One of world's leading virologists may visit Hong Kong at the end of the week to help further studies into the virus.
Robert Webster, chairman of the virology department at St Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, is in China to give training organised by the World Health Organisation.
He has been invited to the SAR by his friend and fellow avian flu specialist, Professor Kennedy Shortridge, of the University of Hong Kong.
'We have an international network keeping people in touch,' Professor Shortridge said. 'He knows all about it. He was not scheduled to come here but I asked him some time ago.'
Dr Webster has spent most of his career tracking down new strains of influenza.
In 1997 the pair arranged a taskforce to test poultry in local wet markets. Starting on December 22, the team worked 18 hours a day until December 28, when the Government began killing 1.2 million chickens.
