Socialist Republic of Vietnam

Thu Apr 24, 6:16 PM ET
By Richard Waddington - REUTERS

GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Thursday that
Vietnam -- one of the first countries to be hit by SARS -- had controlled
the killer virus, offering hope that it can be contained elsewhere.

"In Vietnam, certainly, the disease has been brought under control ... We
have not had any new cases ... for over 10 days," said Dr Julie Hall,
coordinator for the WHO's global outbreak alert and response unit.

The key to the success of Vietnam, where 63 cases have been recorded with
five deaths, lay in the adoption of early and aggressive hospital control
measures and early detection of infection, the official said.

At the same time a number of countries in Europe and elsewhere that had
reported initial outbreaks had managed to stop the spread of SARS, which is
causing panic in parts of southeast Asia, home to the highest number of
cases.

"We have shown that if we can detect and isolate cases early enough, an
outbreak can be brought under control," Hall told journalists at the WHO's
daily telephone conference on SARS.

Another ray of hope of defeating the severe flu-like respiratory disease --
which is new to science and has no cure -- came from China, despite the fact
that the number of cases there was still growing and information from some
parts of the world's most populous country was still scarce.

Hall said the pace of new cases in Guangdong, the first Chinese province to
be affected and the place where the disease is thought to have originated
last November, were beginning to slow, suggesting the outbreak there was
being contained.

"There is room for optimism and for hope, but there is a long way still to
go," the official said, referring to China.

China, which after a hesitant start has begun to cooperate fully with WHO in
fighting SARS, accounts for more than half the 4,439 cases detected by the
U.N. agency around the world.

The death toll from severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) stands at 263,
while more than 2,100 people have recovered from an infection that is
proving fatal in between five and six percent of cases.

CONTRARY TO FEARS

SARS, which is caused by a relative of a common cold virus, is spread by
droplets from sneezing and coughing. But it may also be transmitted by
touching objects such as lift buttons.

Scientists are still battling to develop an effective diagnostic test which
would speed the detection of new cases and so help in containing the spread.

But contrary to what some experts had feared, there is no evidence that
people could be infectious before they begin to show symptoms, Hall said.

"We believe that ... while they are not showing any signs of SARS (people)
are not infectious. When you do not have symptoms, you are very unlikely to
spread this to somebody else," she said.

The chances that SARS-infected people could be "asymptomatic," meaning that
carriers could move around within a population undetected because they
developed none of the tell-tale signs, are also small, WHO officials said.

SARS symptoms include fever and dry cough, which can quickly lead to
breathing problems.

"If asymptomatic carriers were playing an important role we would see it by
now," WHO spokesman Dick Thompson told Reuters.