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Cdc warns sars will reemerge { June 18 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9865-2003Jun18.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9865-2003Jun18.html
SARS Epidemic May Reemerge, CDC Director Warns
Reuters
Wednesday, June 18, 2003; 3:06 PM
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Like deadly flu epidemics of the past, SARS may reemerge later this year as a global health threat, the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday.
Dr. Julie Gerberding pointed out that infectious diseases like SARS and monkeypox are spread around the world by travelers or by trade in exotic animals.
"This is the new normal: emerging infectious diseases ... that create immediate global concerns because of the movement of people and animals," Gerberding said in a speech to the American Medical Association's annual meeting.
Gerberding compared SARS to flu epidemics early in the last century that appeared to subside, only to erupt again with the change of seasons and kill millions.
"The risk is not over as any moment another patient could emerge," she said.
The World Health Organization said this week the worst was over in the battle against SARS and lifted a travel warning for Taiwan, leaving Beijing as the only place with an advisory in force.
But the United Nations agency said health authorities must stay alert for fresh outbreaks of the disease that killed almost 800 people and infected about 8,500 since it emerged late last year in southern China.
Gerberding said the number of cases was "definitely dwindling" but the Northern Hemisphere's fall and winter could witness another outbreak.
"Our next priority is to develop a rapid diagnostic test," she said. "We now know there are milder forms of the illness where people may not have symptoms. What we don't know is if these people can transmit the virus."
The monkeypox outbreak in the U.S. Midwest this spring caught health authorities by surprise, she said, and showed how the movement of people and animals around the globe posed health risks. There have been roughly 80 non-fatal human cases so far traced to pet prairie dogs, with the infection traced to a Gambian rat imported from Africa.
She said no new human cases of the deadly West Nile virus appeared in the United States so far this spring, though the CDC was tracking bird and mosquito virus carriers and expected the deadly illness to reappear this summer. Last year, there were more than 4,000 human cases and 284 deaths.
© 2003 Reuters
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