Sars Death Rate Expected to Rise

Health experts gathered in Canada today to consider ways to prevent the spread of the Sars virus, while the World Health Organisation warned that the death rate from the disease appeared to be climbing.

Just over 100 health experts meeting in Toronto, a city where 23 people have died of the disease, heard that Sars would not disappear and world health authorities must learn to cope with it for the long term.

Others stressed that the disease was still in its infancy, and that medical knowledge was still scant.

"We don't know everything we are dealing with," said Dr Stephen Corber, manager of the division of disease prevention and control at the Pan American Health Organisation, an arm of the WHO.

"We don't know about the extent of spread by other means (besides respiratory droplets), we don't have a good definitive early diagnostic test, and we don't have an effective treatment."

In Geneva, an official with the WHO today said the fatality rate from Sars, now considered to hover between 6% and 10%, was expected to rise. That increase was expected, he said, as the disease was still in its early stages.

Mark Salter, head of the WHO clinical network, said: "We are only six weeks into it. There are a lot of people who went into intensive care and do not seem to be getting better and unfortunately a large number of them will die."

The likelihood of dying from Sars appeared to be higher in places with developed health services, such as Canada or Singapore, he said, but the WHO did not know the reason for this.

"To date we have no collaborative evidence to suggest what treatment regimes are being effective. That is not to say they are not, it just means we do not have the scientific information," Mr Salter added.

Canada, where the WHO has rescinded a warning to travellers to avoid Toronto, reported another 2 deaths from Sars.

In the world's worst hit city, Beijing, authorities prepared to open a specially-built, 1,000-bed Sars hospital that took just eight days to complete. The new hospital formed part of the drastic Sars-prevention measures in a city where 75 people have died and another 1,448 have been infected.

Local residents have erected roadblocks, and schools, cinemas and other public entertainment sites have shut to stop people meeting and spreading the disease.

The Chinese government today announced another 11 deaths in the mainland and reported 187 new cases of Sars. The disease has killed 170 people and infected 3,647 in mainland China.

Five more people died of Sars in Hong Kong and a further 11 infections were reported, bringing the territory's death toll to 162 and the total number of cases to 1,600.