World soon to be SARS-free but virus could return, warns WHO

THE World Health Organisation said yesterday the world should be free of the deadly SARS virus within the next two to three weeks, but warned the disease could emerge in China again next winter.

David Heymann, director of the WHO's communicable diseases division, said he expected Taiwan and Toronto -- the only two areas still regarded as zones where the disease could be transmitted -- to be given a clean bill of health by the first week of July.

“It appears we've had the peak of epidemic in all countries,” Mr Heymann said in an interview ahead of a meeting of Asia Pacific health ministers in Bangkok today.

“All countries are probably now going to be SARS-free within the next two-to-three weeks. SARS will be gone, we believe, from human populations.”

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which is believed to have jumped from animals to humans in southern China late last year, has killed more than 800 people worldwide, infected some 8,500, trimmed economic growth forecasts and cost billions of dollars in lost businesses.

Hong Kong and China, which were the most severely affected, were given the all-clear by the WHO this month and Taiwan and Toronto, Canada, are expected to follow soon.

“If these two countries have no reintroduction or no new cases then by the first week of July all countries should be off the list and therefore we can say that transmission has been interrupted in human populations,” Mr Heymann said.

Countries are removed from the WHO's list of areas of SARS transmission when they have gone for 20 consecutive days without reporting a new case, twice the time it takes for the disease to develop in humans.