The SARS outbreak in Hong Kong is losing momentum and could completely vanish within a few months, a researcher said yesterday.
SARS has infected 1,689 people here and killed 225, including a frontline doctor who was killed by the disease on Tuesday.
But cases have stayed in the single digits for 10 consecutive days and scientists at the Chinese University of Hong Kong believe the disease is on its way out.
They completed a study analyzing the so-called basic reproductive number, which calculates how many new infections are spread from each SARS victim.
When SARS was spreading rapidly in Hong Kong, each patient was on average infecting two other people, but the number has now dropped to just 0.84 infections being spread by each victim.
In epidemics where diseases are spread person-to-person and each victim is infecting less than one other person on average, the illness is in decline, said one of the researchers, Dr. Wong Tze-wai.
Wong said the research indicates Hong Kong's efforts to contain SARS are paying off. The researchers have projected that the SARS outbreak will have dwindled substantially by June or July and it should completely die out here no later than October.
The numbers of SARS cases came down dramatically after Hong Kong ordered strict quarantines of households of all victims last month.
That appears to be breaking the chain of transmission, unlike the cases of some diseases that burn out naturally after spreading through a population, Wong said.
Wong acknowledged the model he and colleagues developed has some limitations. It only applies to person-to-person transmission, which the World Health Organization has called the main route of infection for SARS.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not