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June 06, 2003

INTERNATIONAL IMMUNIZATION NEWS

“WHO Declares SARS Is on the Wane”

Wall Street Journal (www.wsj.com) (06/06/03) P. A3; Chang, Leslie; McKay, Betsy; Heinzl, Mark

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is winding down in China and the rest of the world, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), but most experts believe the virus will return eventually.  Experts note that there is still much unknown about how the disease spread in China.  “SARS has demonstrated an ability to come back with a knockout punch,” says Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) infectious-diseases official James Hughes, speaking of the recent SARS resurgence in Toronto. “What is critical here is maintenance of heightened vigilance, and keeping an open mind about what the future holds.”  Hughes thinks SARS may become seasonal, and he says that two top goals are to figure out why some people spread the disease more and how long patients remain infectious, and to perfect the CDC's diagnostic test for SARS.  Isolation is the only way as yet to contain SARS.  Although there are still many questions about the disease's progress in China, with many SARS patients in Beijing having no known contact with a SARS carrier, WHO advisor Dr. Anne Schuchat says that medical workers may have been overwhelmed or that some patients may have concealed the name of the person from whom they caught the disease.