WHO: Sars Contained in Vietnam

The Sars outbreak has been contained in Vietnam, the World Health Organisation announced today, but said that in the worst affected country, China, the disease was continuing to spread.

In the first positive news to emerge from the crisis, the WHO declared Vietnam the first country to contain Sars and lifted its travel advice warning visitors to avoid the country. It also said that the disease has peaked in Canada, Hong Kong and Singapore.

"Vietnam has been able to show the world that there is hope that Sars can be contained," said Pascale Brudon, a WHO representative in Vietnam.

However China, where the disease is believed to have originated in November, announced another eight deaths and 203 new cases of the flu-like severe acute respiratory syndrome. The death toll for mainland China stands at 139, and 3,106 people are reportedly infected with Sars.

David Heymann, the WHO chief of communicable diseases, said the disease seemed to have peaked "in all the places we knew about" on about March 15. The important exception, he told the Reuters news agency, is China, where disease was on the rise.

"China is the key and it's the unknown question in the whole formula, because if China cannot contain it then it can't be removed," he said.

Worldwide, Sars has killed at least 332 people and infected more than 5,000.

The Hong Kong government said today that the Sars virus has killed another five people in the territory and infected 14 others. But that infection rate is lower than the daily average of 20 to 30 new cases reported in the past few weeks.

Tough action is credited with Vietnam's success and other Asian countries followed the example. Five people died of Sars in Vietnam and another 63 were infected after the virus spread in February through Hanoi's only international hospital.

The government cordoned off Hanoi's French hospital on March 11, a move credited with slowing the rate of infection and keeping Sars from spreading beyond its doors.

In an interview with the BBC, WHO head Gro Harlem Brundtland said there was still time to keep Sars from spreading globally, through travel warnings and checks of travellers for symptoms, such as fever, dry cough and shortness of breath.

"We still have a chance to contain it and to have it go down in the places where outbreaks are already happening and avoid it spreading to new countries," Mr Brundtland said.

In hard-hit Beijing and neighbouring districts, police stopped vehicles and checked drivers and passengers for Sars symptoms. The capital kept its schools and nightlife shut down and was building a 1,000-bed Sars isolation camp on its northern outskirts.

Taiwan began a strict regime of containment today, enforcing a 10-day quarantine in state-provided quarters for visitors arriving from Sars-infected countries. Incoming citizens have to stay at home for the same period. With planes all but empty, airlines cancelled some flights.