WHO removes Taiwan from list of SARS-infected areas
( 2003-07-05 15:16) (Agencies)
The World Health Organisation said on Saturday the global outbreak of the
respiratory illness SARS had been contained as it removed Taiwan from its list
of areas with recent local transmission of the disease.
"We do not mark the end of SARS today, but we observe a milestone: the global
SARS outbreak has been contained," WHO Director-General Gro Harlem Brundtland
said in a statement.
The announcement came after Taiwan, the last area on the list, had gone the
mandatory 20 days or twice the normal incubation period without reporting a new
case of the potentially fatal respiratory sickness.
However, the WHO warned countries they must remain
vigilant to the re-emergence of the disease for which there is no simple
treatment and which has killed more than 800 people worldwide since it appeared
in southern China last November.
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