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WHO touts SARS progress
« on: Apr 28th, 2003, 8:46am » |
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SARS peaks in many places - WHO
Monday, April 28, 2003 Posted: 8:43 AM EDT (1243 GMT)
HANOI, Vietnam (CNN) -- A top World Health Organization official says he believes the worst of SARS is over in Canada, Vietnam, Singapore and Hong Kong, but the disease continues to spread on mainland China.
"We believe the outbreak has come to a peak in these areas because of information that ministries of health have given us," Dr. David Heymann, WHO's executive director of communicable diseases, said Monday.
"The governments have reported cases, and we see in each of these areas, the case reports are decreasing and becoming more stable so we believe the epidemic may have peaked in these countries," he added.
Meanwhile, the United Nations organization gave Vietnam a clean bill of health Monday for SARS, which stands for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. (Full story)
"WHO congratulates Vietnam in being the first country in the world to contain SARS. Such success can be attributed to a range of factors, but the most important were the speed of action, leadership and transparency shown by the government," said WHO representative Pascale Brudon.
The cumulative number of Vietnam SARS cases has held steady at 63 since April 12. According to WHO, that number includes deaths and previously reported cases, since the status of a case may change over time.
Vietnam has reported five deaths from SARS. The last person to be diagnosed with the disease has been in isolation since April 8 -- twice the typical 10-day incubation period.
China's Health Ministry Monday reported 203 new cases on the mainland, including 96 in Beijing. Mainland China has 3,106 cases. Eight more people have died from SARS in the last day in China, including three more people in the Chinese capital, which has 1,199 cases. The disease has killed 59 people in Beijing.
But despite daily briefings by China's Ministry of Health, it is not possible to tell how many newly reported cases are actually new and how many many be old figures slowly trickling in.
For months, Chinese authorities underreported SARS figures and gave assurances that the government remained on top of the situation. Then more than a week ago, the Ministry of Health admitted it had failed to give guidance in dealing with SARS, a revelation which lead to the sacking of the health minister as well as the mayor of Beijing.
"To control SARS, it is essential to identify the cases very fast, and isolate them properly so they cannot pass the disease onto others, and Vietnam did this very well," Brudon said.
Vietnam was the second country to be hit by the recently recognized respiratory illness. The first was China, where an outbreak began in southern Guangdong province last November.
Mainland China and Hong Kong have been hardest hit, together accounting for more than two thirds of the global death toll of 329. Nearly 4,300, or about 90 percent, of global SARS cases are in mainland China and Hong Kong.
Through April 26, WHO reports a global total of 4,836 SARS cases, including 293 deaths in 26 countries. According to WHO, 2,239 patients have recovered. More than 5,200 have been infected, although many of these have recovered.
In an attempt to keep the disease from entering Vietnam, the country's northern Quang Ninh province has begun barring Chinese tourists at the overland border. Vietnam's Ministry of Health has recommended that the border be sealed indefinitely, WHO said.
Health officials have praised Vietnam's speedy response to SARS.
Beijing authorities Sunday ordered the temporary closure of public places like theaters and libraries and suspended the approval of marriages in an effort to prevent gatherings where SARS can be spread.
Across the Taiwan Strait, Taipei announced the island's first SARS death and imposed a 10-day mandatory quarantine on all people arriving from areas hit hard by the flu-like disease. (Taiwan gets tough)
In Singapore meanwhile, health officials have announced hospitals will turn away visitors. Authorities in the city-state also planned to close dozens of food markets on Monday for a mass cleaning. Two more deaths reported Sunday took Singapore's total death toll from SARS to 21. (Singapore moves)
Over the weekend health ministers from around Asia met in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur to hammer out a battle plan against SARS. (Full story)
More airport screening will be introduced, along with travel bans on suspected SARS sufferers and health declarations for travelers from affected countries.
Places like Hong Kong have already started using infra-red temperature scanners to check inbound travelers for fever at the busiest border crossing between the territory and mainland China.
Hong said on Monday five more people had died there from the virus and another 14 had been infected, taking the toll to 38 dead and 1,557 cases.
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