Death rate from SARS revised upwards

IN Hong Kong, health officials revised the territory’s SARS death rate to 7.2% of all reported cases, from about 5%. Officials fear it may rise further.

The Health Department has been reporting the number of deaths divided by the number of cases, but some doctors have questioned this formula, saying some people already in hospitals would die and push numbers higher.

Four more people died in Hong Kong, bringing the toll to 109, the government said on Thursday.

The South China Morning Post quoted two experts in Thursday’s editions as saying the mortality rate here might end up at around 10%.

“Many academics estimated the death rate to be between 5% and 6%,” Sydney Chung Sheung-chee, dean of medicine at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, was quoted as saying.

“But I believe it has been underestimated. I would hope the figure would stay as low as possible, but a conservative estimate would be at least 10%.”

In Singapore, Health Minister Lim Hng Kiang said yesterday 8% to 9% of the island’s SARS patients are dying. The World Health Organisation

expanded an advisory against travel to affected areas, warning against visiting Beijing, the northern province of Shanxi and Toronto. Japan’s government extended its own travel warning to cover the two areas.

Experts say it is still unclear whether the tough measures will prevent the disease from becoming a permanent fixture. The WHO says there are

several signs needed to indicate the outbreak is contained: when the spread in the local community is stemmed; when no new infections have been exported to other countries for a certain amount of time; when the total number of cases falls to a

certain level; and when the number of new infections detected each day is under a particular number.