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'No need to panic over SARS'

By Our Staff Reporter

CHENNAI APRIL 25 . The public need not be panic as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) has a low mortality rate, but the healthcare providers and doctors should take the syndrome seriously and follow the diagnostic procedures.

At a discussion here today, hosted by the Respiratory Research Foundation of India, an attempt was made to dispel the fear of SARS.

C. Ravindranath, Director of Medical Education, said SARS patients could be classified at present as suspected or probable cases. Persons with symptoms of common cold and fever and coming from an area with SARS were `suspected' to be infected, while persons with active pneumonia were `probable' patients.

The Communicable Diseases Hospital, Tondiarpet, was open to receive cases of SARS and ventilators were available at all major hospitals until proper immunisation schedules were launched.

Attempts at anti-viral drug use had not been encouraging, he said.

Launching the discussion, the panellists, who included M.D. Gupte, Director of National Institute of Epidemiology, and Ram Gopal Krishnan and R. Narasimhan of Apollo Hospitals, explained that suspected SARS patients should have contacted the disease after February 1, 2003, must have travelled to Hong Kong, Vietnam, China or Singapore and must have measured a temperature of 100.5 degree Farenheit.

According to the panellists, SARS affects people with already low immunity.

The virus spreads through droplets and is not known to spread through air or by contact.

The disease is self-limiting and the virulence of the virus falls from the first to the fourth generation victims.

While travelling, `suspected' victims should avoid crowded places, and pay strict attention to personal hygiene to prevent spread of the virus, since no mechanism was available to identify people with secondary transmission.A median of 5-6 days of incubation and the outer limit of 10-12 days was sufficient to find out if the patient was suffering from the virus. Local transmission had not been found in India so far, the panelists said.

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