- (AFP) -- The global SARS outbreak is nearing its end
after a three-month rampage, but there is no guarantee that the often deadly
virus could not swiftly reemerge, the World Health Organization (WHO) revealed.
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- "In terms of the number of cases, we are seeing
the end of outbreak," said Hitoshi Oshitani, the WHO's regional adviser
on communicable diseases and coordinator for SARS response in the Western
Pacific region.
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- But in Beijing, David Heymann, the WHO's chief infectious
disease expert, said Thursday at the end of a two-day visit that the world
should not relax its guard.
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- "We still don't know exactly where SARS came from,
or how it was transferred to the human population," he told reporters.
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- WHO regional surveillance officer Elizabeth Miranda would
not discount the possibility that SARS "may follow the disease pattern
of other respiratory diseases like flu or the common cold, which usually
have seasonal patterns around winter or cold temperatures" while easing
amid the summer heat.
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- Oshitani said health authorities should learn the precautionary
tale of Toronto, citing a fresh outbreak in Canada's largest city shortly
after the virus was declared under control there.
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- Oshitani said one case that escaped the monitoring system
in the only hard hit non-Asian country was all it took to ignite a second
epidemic.
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- "That's why we need to keep up the vigilance in
all countries," he added.
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- The disease appears to be already "under control"
in China, but still "not completely under control" in Taiwan,
Oshitani said, citing two areas which, along with Hong Kong, comprised
the ground zero of the virus.
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- Of the three, only Taiwan reported new cases with two
on Thursday while the only death was recorded in China.
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- According to WHO figures, the virus has infected more
than 8,400 people worldwide and killed more than 750, but Oshitani said
the effective quarantine and case documentation measures undertaken by
Asian countries were instrumental in beating the disease back.
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- "In all severely affected countries including China,
there is strong government commitment and a huge (number) of the control
measures have been implemented in the past three months. That's a major
factor for the decline in the number of cases."
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- Heymann said he expressed to the Chinese authorities
WHO concerns over Beijing's case definition of Severe Acute Respiratory
Syndrome (SARS) and the information that China was sharing with the WHO.
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- "(But) our concerns about information coming from
China have now been answered during this visit," he added.
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- Heymann also hinted a travel advisory warning against
all non-essential travel to northern China, including Beijing, may be lifted
by WHO director-general Gro Harlem Brundtland following a review of the
new data in Geneva on Friday.
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- The WHO three months ago issued a global alert on the
new and mysterious influenza-like respiratory disease spreading mainly
among hospital staff that initially hit southern China, Hong Kong and Vietnam.
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- The ease with which the virus was transmitted in hospital
settings and spread through air travel accounted for its "enormous
economic impact," even though older communicable diseases like malaria,
dengue and tuberculosis kill more people around the world each year, Oshitani
said.
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- Repairing the economic damage is expected to be high
on the agenda when ministers from 10 Southeast Asian countries, plus China,
Japan and South Korea gather in Cambodia next week for the ASEAN Regional
Conference (ARF).
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- WHO surveillance officer Elizabeth Miranda said meanwhile
that it could be possible to develop a vaccine against the disease, citing
the wide availability of vaccines for animals against the coronavirus that
is suspected to have jumped the species barrier and mutated to bring SARS.
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- But she said that while efforts to develop a version
for humans are underway, "we may be a few years away from a real vaccine
that may be used widely for prevention of SARS."
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