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Experts issue SARS warning
From CNN's Mike Chinoy
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (CNN) -- Although the SARS epidemic appears to be waning, health experts have wrapped up a global meeting warning the virus is still a threat and could return late in the year. "We are not finished with this yet. This is a brand new disease, the first time in humans. We are not sure what the future holds," said Jim Hughes, from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, at the end of a two-day SARS meet in Malaysia. "We should be pleased with the progress, but we must not let up. We must continue to be extremely vigilant." The pneumonia-like disease first appeared in southern China last November, and has so far infected around 8,400 people and killed about 800 people in close to 30 countries across the world. While the number of new cases has fallen in recent days, many scientists fear that like other respiratory infections it could resurface in the northern hemisphere's autumn. "When is the next time? We don't have a time frame. I suspect it will likely to be November, if history is anything to go by," said Dr. Margaret Chan, from Hong Kong's health department. One reason for the concern is the likelihood that SARS originated in animals. Determining whether that is true is one of the chief challenges in the fight to eradicate it. "Even if transmission can be eliminated now in humans, there likely is an animal reservoir out there which means it can be reintroduced into humans at any time," said Hughes. The head of the World Health Organization echoed those concerns, saying there is no room for complacency. While WHO chief Gro Harlem Brundtland declared Tuesday SARS had been "stopped dead in its tracks" less than three months after issuing a global alert, she warned a day later that experts need to remain on top of the virus. Among questions discussed at the conference in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur were the prospects for a vaccine, which researchers say remains a long way off. They also say there is an urgent need for faster diagnostic tests, so SARS patients can be isolated quickly before they infect others. Because there is no cure and vaccine, authorities have to rely on centuries-old measures of isolation, quarantine and travel restriction to curb the disease.
Key too is the unprecedented collaboration that in the past few months has helped bring SARS under control, with scientists around the world sharing data and clinical specimens. But overshadowing all of this is the near certainty that other deadly germs will emerge. "We have every year in the last 20 years seen a new disease identified. There will be new threats of this kind, there will be new diseases coming. Therefore the capacity to identify and react, to respond quickly, is so important," Brundtland said. Even with SARS fading, experts are leaving Kuala Lumpur with a daunting agenda. They need to find answers to the many questions raised here and to do so urgently, before SARS or another emerging disease poses a new threat to global public health. The Chinese capital of Beijing is the only place still saddled with a SARS advisory from the WHO, and experts say China is the key to making sure the deadly illness will not re-emerge.
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