SARS has run its course in Vietnam, WHO says
Mon Apr 28, 7:15 AM ET
Steve Sternberg USA TODAY
The World Health Organization (news - web sites) declared today that the SARS (news - web sites) outbreak in Vietnam is over, making it the first nation to successfully control the deadly and contagious virus.
No new cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome have been reported in Vietnam since April 8.
Thus Vietnam becomes the first country to be scratched from the list of 26 nations with outbreaks of SARS. These countries have reported 5,218 probable cases of SARS and 317 deaths.
WHO also announced that it was lifting its advisories against travel to Vietnam.
''We're all feeling pretty good about it,'' WHO spokesman Dick Thompson said. He credited Vietnam's success to a quick, comprehensive response and ''basic infection control.''
Also, WHO chief of communicable diseases David Heymann told Reuters in an interview today that outbreaks of SARS have peaked in Canada, Singapore and Hong Kong, but not in China, where the disease emerged last year.
Vietnam, the second country stricken by SARS after China, has reported 63 cases and five deaths since the outbreak began Feb. 26. The most recent case was reported April 8.
China has reported 2,914 cases and 131 deaths.
Authorities in Beijing closed entertainment centers Sunday and broadened efforts to enforce a quarantine. About 4,000 people in the city were placed under quarantine last week.
''Certainly, in a country like China with a very large population, there is a possibility that the disease can become established,'' Heymann said.
He also warned that the disease could wreak havoc if it reaches sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia and India, where AIDS (news - web sites) is rampant and disease surveillance and medical care are inadequate. ''It will be an even more fatal disease than it is now,'' he said.
The SARS death rate, which has risen from 3% early on to about 6%, has prompted some researchers to suggest that the virus has become deadlier in some areas than others.
Virus expert Robert Webster of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., who returned last week from Hong Kong, said he believes the SARS viruses in Hong Kong and Toronto are more virulent than those in the USA, where 41 probable cases have been reported but no deaths.
