The World Health Organization (WHO) said today the world should be free of SARS within the next two to three weeks but warned the disease could emerge in China next winter.
Mr 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.
"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, and infected some 8,500. It has also led to the trimming of 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 WHO this month and Taiwan and Toronto, Canada are expected to be cleared soon.