THE US: The United States needs to continue its efforts at early detection of the SARS virus to keep it in check, a top US health official said yesterday. "We need to stay vigilant here.
We haven't had the kind of long chains of transmission that we've seen in some other countries, but there is no reason why that couldn't happen here," Julie Gerberding, director of the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, told Fox television.
"So we are putting a high emphasis on early detection. We're putting a high emphasis on having the best possible containment in the healthcare facilities, because that's where a lot of the community spread has started," she said.
"And we also have asked our state and local health officials to actively monitor exposed people," she added. "By that, I mean check in with them every day to make sure that they are not developing early SARS."
Gerberding also warned that a vaccine was at least a year away.
Speaking on CBS television, she said: "I think our strategy right now is, let's work really hard to contain this until we have better tools like a vaccine or a drug treatment, but we're at least a year away from any kind of vaccine that would be useful in people."
Worldwide, SARS has now killed more than 300 people and infected nearly 5,000, most of them in Asia, drawing a warning against complacency from the head of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, Anthony Fauci.
Asked on ABC television whether he thought the SARS epidemic was under control, Fauci replied: "Well, certainly globally it is not. It is what we call an evolving epidemic, and it is very, very difficult to predict just which way it's going to go . . . so I think we would be quite correct to say it is not under control right now." - (AFP)