Save us from SARS

WE EXPECT that by now the Ministry of Health has devised a plan to deal with the possible spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) to our shores. Given the high volume and frequency of air travel in and out of TT, we may consider ourselves lucky that this killer strain of influenza has not as yet hit our country. But that fact should not make us complacent and, at the very least, we feel the Health Ministry should be monitoring, at our ports of entry, passengers coming into TT from Toronto and Far East countries — Singapore, Hong Kong, Guangdong Province and other regions of China and Vietnam — where most SARS cases have been reported over the last two weeks.

The outbreak of this contagious disease is not like the epidemics of flu we have experienced in the past, including the extensive but not really dangerous Hong Kong flu. As its name implies, this is a severely acute infection which has already spread to 52 countries affecting some 1,804 persons of whom 62 have died in 15 different places. What the world is facing here is an infectious killer disease for which there is no vaccine or medical remedy. According to an alert issued by the Caribbean Epidemiology Centre (Carec) each of its member countries should be prepared for the possible importation of SARS cases. This is important since, as Carec points out, "early detection, isolation and infection control are essential elements for containment of infection."

It seems necessary then for our public health authorities to be closely monitoring persons arriving in our country who may be suffering from the common symptoms of SARS, such as high fever, respiratory problems like coughing, shortness of breath or difficulty in breathing. Such persons should be immediately hospitalised and isolated, since this appears to be the only means of halting the spread of this virulent flu. According to Carec, close contact is thought to be an important factor in transmission of SARS, with an incubation period of two to ten days. The Centre explains: "Close contact means having cared for, having lived with, or having direct contact with respiratory secretions and bodily fluids of a person with SARS. Close contact in an aircraft would be sitting next to a case, in the same row, sitting two rows in front or two behind."

We need hardly add that visitors who develop the symptoms of SARS after their arrival in our country should immediately seek medical help. Infection with this flu virus, we are told, is most dangerous among persons over 40 who suffer from or have had illnesses such as coronary heart disease, renal impairment or liver problems. These persons are among the ten percent of SARS cases which progress to a more severe form of the syndrome and among whom the mortality rate is high. The other 90 percent of cases seem to recover in six to seven days.

The World Health Organisation issued an advisory on Wednesday recommending that "persons travelling to Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region of China and Guangdong Province, consider postponing all but essential travel." In this regard, it may be advisable for Minister of Legal Affairs Camille Robinson-Regis to cancel her trip to Beijing later this month. The Minister is due to attend a summit of the World Intellectual Property Organisation in the Chinese capital, but she will have to consider the risk to herself of contracting SARS and the possibility of bringing the disease back to TT. The team of world scientists studying this flu will sooner or later, we expect, reveal its precise source and genesis. However, the perverse capacity of some viruses to mutate into more virulent forms seems almost diabolical, adding to the woes that already distress our world. Please save us from SARS.