WHO tries to calm new SARS fears

"I think we can deal [with it] better than before because we have learned a lot already. But ... if the virus undergoes genetic transformation, the story would be very different. "

Shigeru Omi, the World Health Organization's director for the Western Pacific region

A new SARS case discovered in Singapore does not pose a public health risk and travel restrictions are unnecessary, international health officials said yesterday.

"There is no need for panic," Shigeru Omi, the World Health Organization's [WHO] director for the Western Pacific region, told a news conference, adding that there is confidence in the strength of Singapore's SARS surveillance system.

"The single case is an isolated case," Balaji Sadasivan, Singapore's minister of state for health, said on the sidelines of a regional WHO conference. "There is no person-to-person transmission, so there is no outbreak."

Hitoshi Oshitani, coordinator of WHO's regional SARS response team, said that the world health body is not issuing any new travel advisories.

Singapore authorities announced on Tuesday that they have confirmed that a 27-year-old Singaporean man has SARS, the first new case in four months in the island-state.

Sadasivan the man "most likely" was infected in a laboratory he visited Aug. 23 that was conducting SARS research.

The lab in question, as well as another facility where the man was doing research on the West Nile Fever virus have been closed as a precaution.

"We will audit them and run through all the safety procedures in the laboratory," he said.

He also said that 35 people who had been in contact with the man were quarantined and none appears to have the disease.

"There is no public health risk," he said.

Omi the Singapore case does not show typical signs of SARS but that the man, who is already well, may have not been exposed heavily or may have had a strong immune response that suppressed usual symptoms like pneumonia.

He said the man visited the laboratory Aug. 23 -- six days after a visit by people dealing with the SARS virus. The man developed fever three days later.

Omi is wise to assume the infection was acquired in the laboratory and "it makes sense for ... countries to further improve safety measures."

Oshitani the Singapore government is reviewing whether any safety guidelines were breached at the lab and that the WHO would assist if needed.

Asked the WHO was ready to deal with another SARS outbreak despite budgetary constraints, Omi said it depends on whether the virus remains the same or has mutated.

"I think we can deal [with it] better than before because we have learned a lot already," he said. "But ... if the virus undergoes genetic transformation, the story would be very different."

Sadasivan that Singapore health authorities completed in July a "retrospective review" of about 600 patients with fever and found 32 positive for SARS.

"What it means clinically is very hard to figure out because these 600 people never developed atypical pneumonia and even the 32 that tested positive did not transmit the disease to anyone else, but it does show that 5 percent of people with fever may test positive on testing for SARS using our present-day kits and tests," he said.

SARS more than 900 people worldwide after it first emerged last November in China. More than 8,400 people were sickened before the WHO declared in June that the disease had been "stopped dead in its tracks."

The last previous case of SARS reported in the world was in Taiwan, where the last patient was isolated on June 15, Oshitani said.