WHO declares SARS epidemic under control

By Adrián González Aguirre BMJ

The World Health Organization declared that the epidemic of sudden acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is under control. According to Christine McNab, spokeswoman for WHO, the numbers of SARS cases are falling in all areas, but the outbreak will not end until no new cases are reported. She called for a continued state of high alert since any new unidentified case could lead to a new outbreak.

The announcement came while more than 1000 scientists, doctors, and experts were meeting in Malaysia at the WHO's global conference on SARS. In her opening address the WHO director general, Gro Harlem Brundtland, stated: "We have seen SARS stopped dead in its tracks." She said that the SARS epidemic is slowing down, but the outbreak highlighted the weakness of public health systems all around the world. She also pointed out the fast international cooperation and thanked all health workers who helped in the control of the epidemic, risking their own lives.

KEVIN FRAYER/AP

Toronto was taken off the list of areas with recent local transmission of SARS on 14 May but was added again on 26 May. This change in status followed information from Health Canada about a new cluster of 26 suspect and eight probable cases of SARS linked to four hospitals in Toronto. Authorities have not advised against non essential travel.

On 17 June WHO lifted the travel recommendation from Taiwan. With this new exclusion, only Beijing to date has travel restrictions. On 13 June WHO removed its recommendation that people should postpone all but essential travel to Hebei, Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, and Tianjin regions in China. On 31 May Singapore was also taken off the list, the same happened in Hong Kong and Guandong province on 23 May and in the Philippines on 20 May.

The number of SARS cases reported in China has decreased dramatically. China was seeing an average of 166 new cases a day during the first week of May, and in the fourth week this number fell to 16. This dramatic change encouraged David Heymann, WHO's executive director for communicable diseases, to travel to Beijing to investigate this rapid decline.

As studentBMJ goes to press, a total of 8464 cumulative cases have been reported, and the disease has caused 799 deaths.