WHO: No worry over SARS’ return

URDANETA CITY — A World Health Organization (WHO) official said yesterday there’s no reason to worry that the dreaded Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) might recur but advised people to continue surveillance and strict monitoring of all points of entry in the country.

WHO representative Dr. Jan Marc Olive said that SARS cases in the Philippines were due to importation "so I think when you consider all the cases all over the world, I think we did pretty well (in controlling it)."

"All that have been put in place by the government are still there and functioning so we have a system of alert and if importation comes up. But as for the moment SARS transmission has been interrupted all over the world," Olive said.

He assured that there’s no case of SARS transmission anywhere in the world although a new case was reported in Singapore two weeks ago. Olive said it was only a case of laboratory contamination.

SARS, which first broke out in Asia late last year, infected more than 8,000 people and killed more than 900, mostly in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore as well as battering Asian economies.

The government early this year reported 12 SARS cases including two deaths but later declared it had eradicated the disease locally.

Adela Catalon of Alcala, Pangasinan, the country’s first SARS casualty, contracted the disease while working as a nurse in Canada. Her ailing father, Mauricio Catalon, also died from SARS when he contracted the disease from Adela, who came home early this year for a vacation.

Olive said the government was not lax in controlling the disease and, in fact, alotted funds to rehabilitate hospitals for infection control.

"People," he said "have been trained and there’s now training going on for medical doctors regarding SARS and other infectious diseases."

"I think we are doing fine," he added. "We are doing pretty well because we did not get transmission in the country."

According to Olive, the possibility that SARS will recur is still uncertain and since SARS did not originate in the Philippines, it will probably come from the same areas where infection was prevalent like Hong Kong.