Measures to control SARS should be maintained all through this year or longer because no one is sure if the disease will make a comeback this winter, a Hong Kong scientist has warned.
Dr. Yuen Kwok-yung, a microbiologist with the University of Hong Kong, also defended his discovery about one month ago that the SARS virus could very possibly have originated in wildlife and then jumped to human beings.
"No one is sure whether the SARS virus will come back again this winter," Dr. Yuen was quoted as saying by the Beijing-based Health News journal Friday.
"From now on, we have six months left to prepare ourselves for a possible next outbreak," he told the paper. "We should absolutely not slacken measures."
Dr. Yuen, whose research in late March first identified a new type of coronavirus as the cause of severe acute respiratory syndrome, said it was still not clear if the SARS virus would cause regular outbreaks like two other members of the coronavirus family which cause colds among humans every winter.
He suggested the measures to block infections, which have been proved efficient in containing SARS outbreaks both in the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong, should be maintained and improved.
More than 5,300 people have been infected and 347 killed by SARS in the worst-hit Chinese mainland. In Hong Kong, at least 1,755 people have been infected with a loss of 296 lives. But there have been few new cases in recent days.
Despite the decline of the disease, Dr. Yuen urged more work to curb possible virus transmission from wildlife to humans, maintaining tight health checks at exit-entry departments, and control of in-hospital infections.
Joint research between dr. Yuen's lab and a center for disease control in Shenzhen, in south China's Guangdong Province, has indicated that the SARS virus could have originated from civet cats, whose meat is served in restaurants in southern China.
Although the discovery has been challenged by scientists with the China Agricultural University, Dr. Yuen still insisted that the origin of the SARS virus was "most possibly" from wildlife.
More than 10 percent of game dealers and workers who slaughter and cook wild animals were found positive in terms of SARS virus through serum tests, compared with zero among ordinary people, Dr.Yuen told the paper, which said his name "has been closely linked with SARS thanks to his attainments in this field."
He and his colleagues were busy doing lab work for the development of drugs and vaccines against SARS, the paper said.
Dr. Yuen was in the national capital of Beijing Wednesday to receive an honorary title issued jointly by the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and the Beijing Union Medical College.
(Xinhua News Agency June 21, 2003)
