THE WORLD is battling to prevent the spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) from the countries in which this latest infectious disease is now located to become a global pandemic. There have been some 5,000 cases in 27 countries with around 300 deaths so far. Thankfully, there have been no reported cases in Jamaica or the Caribbean up to now.
AIDS, a viral infectious disease, has been with us in pandemic proportions for the last two decades, with neither cure nor vaccine in sight despite the most intensive medical research on any disease in human history. Tens of millions of people are infected with the human immuno-deficiency virus (HIV) and millions have succumbed to the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) which is 100 per cent fatal. Only about six per cent of SARS victims have died. Entire societies and economies have been ravaged by AIDS, reminiscent of the plagues of earlier times except more global in scale. In the last 25 years alone some 30 new infectious diseases have emerged. Most have been fairly localised. But increasing global interconnectedness facilitated by air travel has created conditions for the rapid and extensive spread of new infectious diseases.
SARS is believed to have originated in the Guangdong province of China and then quickly hopped through south-east Asia and entered Canada within a few weeks. Last week, the World Health Organisation (WHO) issued a warning that the world should be prepared for the outbreak of more infectious diseases, both the resurgence of old ones and the emergence of new ones. Another influenza pandemic, like those which killed millions in the 20th century, is overdue, the WHO warned. And there will be more outbreaks like SARS as well as diseases not yet known, David Heyman, head of the WHO's Department of Communicable Diseases told a news conference at headquarters in Geneva. Small genetic mutations in micro-organisms can lead to potent disease-causing new strains. The SARS agent has been quickly identified by the modern tools of gene mapping as a corona virus related to the virus which causes the mild, non-fatal common cold. The mutated SARS corona virus is thought to have crossed from animals specifically ducks or pigs, like the AIDS virus from chimpanzees, into humans.
The WHO wants countries to tighten surveillance against the spread of infectious diseases. SARS has reintroduced the use of the quarantine as a disease control mechanism. We have been assured by the Ministry of Health that every effort is being reasonably made to prevent the entry of SARS. As a country, we cannot allow our public health system, which has done so much to control infectious diseases in the past, to slip and unnecessarily increase our exposure to the disease threats of the future.
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