ASIA. The SARS virus claimed 116 probable new cases yesterday compared with the previous report two days earlier, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Taiwan has now taken over from mainland China as the epicentre of the crisis. On 17 May, Taiwan reported 34 new cases and 36 new cases were reported the following day, making the island the world’s most rapidly growing base for SARS.
As of yesterday, a cumulative total of 7,864 probable SARS cases with 643 deaths have been reported from 28 countries. This represents an increase of 116 new cases and 20 deaths when compared with the last global update on Saturday. The new deaths occurred in China (7), Hong Kong (8), and Taiwan (5). Besides the 70 probable new cases in Taiwan, cases also occurred in Hong Kong (4), China (40), the US (1) and Singapore (1).
As SARS continues to damage Asian-related travel business, WHO has analysed information from 35 flights in which a probable symptomatic SARS case was among the passengers or crew and found only four cases of possible infection. “To date, symptomatic probable SARS cases on four of these flights have been associated with possible transmission of infection to fellow passengers or crew,” said WHO in a statement.
The most recent flight during which SARS may have been transmitted from a probable symptomatic case to another fellow passenger, seated next to each other, occurred on 23 March during a flight from Bangkok to Beijing.
On 27 March, WHO issued recommendations for the screening of air passengers departing from areas with recent local transmission. In some areas that have experienced severe SARS outbreaks, including Hong Kong SAR and Singapore, measures being applied at airports exceed those recommended by WHO.
It commented: “In these areas, prompt detection and isolation of cases, and rigorous tracing and home confinement or quarantine of all contacts have served as the first line of protection against the risk that an infectious person could board an aircraft. Stringent measures for export screening confer yet another level of protection.”
