Vietnam first country to contain SARS

The World Health Organisation today declared that Vietnam the world’s first country to contain the deadly SARS bug.

At a news conference in Hanoi, the organisation also said it was lifting its advisories against travel to Vietnam.

No new cases of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome have been reported in the Vietnam since April 8. WHO set a 20-day window – double the disease’s incubation period – as the standard for lifting the travel advisories and declaring that the outbreak was no longer spreading.

Yesterday WHO chief Gro Harlem Brundtland said there was still time to halt the global spread of SARS through airport checks and travel warnings, and Taiwan announced a 10-day quarantine for visitors arriving from hard-hit areas.

In China, which has been widely criticised for failing to respond earlier to pleas for action, the Beijing city government closed entertainment venues yesterday.

Hong Kong reported a drop in cases for the second day in a row. The territory yesterday reported 12 new deaths, but just 16 new infections, the lowest total yet since the government began releasing daily statistics last month.

Worldwide, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome has killed at least 319 people and affected more than 4,800, most of them in Asia.

WHO head Brundtland said yesterday there was still time to keep SARS from spreading globally if affected countries took strong enough action, and through travel warnings and checks of travellers for symptoms, such as fever, dry cough and shortness of breath.

“I think we still have a window of opportunity. At the moment, we still have a chance to contain it and to have it go down in the places where outbreaks are already happening and avoid it spreading to new countries,” Brundtland said in a BBC interview.

The WHO has issued travel warnings for affected areas, including regions of China and Toronto, which reported its 21st victim yesterday. Canada has the biggest outbreak of SARS outside of Asia.

Vietnam had five deaths from SARS after the virus spread in February through Hanoi’s only international hospital. The Hanoi French Hospital closed its doors on March 11, a move that is credited with slowing the rate of infection and keeping Sars from spreading beyond its doors.

The Vietnamese government “showed strong commitment at the highest level from the beginning of the outbreak”, the WHO said during the weekend.

Starting immediately in Taiwan – which has had one SARS death – foreigners arriving from countries hit hard by SARS will be quarantined for 10 days at government-designated quarters, while returning Taiwan residents will have to stay at home, Premier Yu Shyi-kun said.

Taiwanese who break the quarantine will be held at the government-designated quarters. All violators can be jailed for up to two years or fined a maximum of 300,000 new Taiwan dollars (€7,900), Yu said.

Beijing yesterday closed the city’s theatres, cinemas, internet cafes and other public entertainment venues to ”stop possible spread of the SARS virus and ensure public health”, the official Xinhua New Agency reported. The measure was announced just days after the city shut down schools, sending home 1.7m pupils.

Eight of China’s nine new SARS deaths announced yesterday were in Beijing, said health ministry spokesman Deng Haihua. The new deaths lifted the Chinese mainland’s death toll to 131 with almost 3,000 people affected across the country, Deng said.

Hundreds of construction workers were working around-the-clock on a new 1,000-bed isolation camp for SARS victims on Beijing’s northern outskirts.

Singapore announced one more SARS death – a 37-year-old surgeon who died on April 22 but was not classified as a SARS death until yesterday. His death is the 22nd in Singapore out of 199 cases.

In Europe, Italian health minister Girolamo Sirchia asked for an urgent meeting of the EU to adopt uniform measures to fight SARS, the Italian news agency ANSA reported.

Italy, which has reported four probable cases of SARS, also is putting pressure on China to do more. If China doesn’t adopt all the necessary controls on passengers headed to Italy, “we will be forced to take drastic measures, such as reducing the number of flights”, ANSA quoted Sirchia as saying.