SARS threat could be over within months, says WHO

THE SARS threat could be over within months, but countries must remain vigilant to prevent the disease from resurfacing and combat other possible future epidemics, World Health Organisation officials said yesterday.

"We're hoping in the next few months we'll be in a position to say that the box is now closed," said Dr Mark Salter, a member of WHO's communicable disease surveillance and response unit.

"If the disease rears its head again, we need to have the information at our fingertips to thrust it back again," Dr Salter said.

Scientists still need to study if animals can be a source of reinfection of SARS for humans, Salter said, adding that such lessons could help countries "develop the capacity to deal with any new infectious diseases in coming years".

WHO director-general Gro Harlem Brundtland will head around 1,000 scientists, government officials, observers and journalists who are expected to attend the two-day WHO conference starting in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur today.

Hard-hit regions including mainland China, Hong Kong and Canada will discuss their responses to SARS. The conference will also review scientific findings, control strategies, psychological aspects of the disease and the possible role of animals in the outbreak.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome has killed about 800 people and sickened more than 8,400 since it was first detected in southern China late last year.

New SARS infections have dropped in recent weeks and deaths have become sporadic, following weeks of strict screening and WHO warnings against travel.

Meanwhile, the WHO's top infectious diseases specialist, David Heymann, said that Hong Kong could be removed from the UN agency's list of SARS-affected areas as early as next week.

Heymann, in Hong Kong on a two-day visit, told reporters "we believe the time is approaching" for the city to be removed from the list as it had not reported a new confirmed case of the pneumonia-like respiratory virus since June 3.

An area can be removed from the list once 20 days have passed after the last case is isolated, he said.

Heymann heaped praise on Hong Kong for successfully controlling the global spread of SARS, which has killed 295 people in the territory from 1,755 infections.

Hong Kong's transparency has provided the UN health agency with crucial information that has helped advise governments around the world on what measures were needed to halt the transmission of the virus.

The "well-trained" medical professionals working in Hong Kong could be useful in establishing a centre of disease control operation in the territory, he added.

Heymann said transmission of SARS in Hong Kong differed somewhat due to the territory's dense population and the design of its high-rise residential buildings, as did the territory's close contact with the Chinese mainland particularly Guangdong province, where the disease originated last November.

The World Health Organisation lifted its April 2 travel warning against non-essential travel to Hong Kong, one of the world's worst hit regions, on May 23.