Hong Kong's health authorities have taken correct steps to deal with the atypical pneumonia outbreak, former Director of the US Centres for Disease Control & Prevention Dr Jeffery Koplan said today.

The steps include rapidly identifying potential patients and their contacts, isolating and caring for them, protecting healthcare workers, and conducting research on the disease.

"The important thing now is to make full use of the information obtained since the disease first emerged in Hong Kong," Dr Koplan said.

Stressing that much remained unknown about the disease, he said it is impossible to predict its future pattern.

Regarding the Government's report on the Amoy Gardens outbreak, Dr Koplan said transmission through sewage is an interesting hypothesis, and other possible modes of transmission should also be explored.

It was impossible to say whether the disease is becoming less virulent in Hong Kong, he noted, adding that it is unrealistic to expect an early eradication of the virus.

"Suppressing and minimising the disease is probably the most that can be expected," Dr Koplan said.