BEIJING, May 16 (UPI) -- Aggressive containment measures are credited for the apparent absence of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or the SARS virus, anywhere this year.
However, researchers and health officials are not prepared to say SARS is extinct, the New York Times said Monday.
"We'd be lucky to believe that, and that would be very nice, but there is no research to support that," said Dr. Julie Hall, the SARS team leader at the Beijing office of the World Health Organization. "Just because we've not seen SARS anymore this year doesn't mean it is not out in the wild this year."
The epidemic strain of SARS that caused at least 774 deaths worldwide by June of 2003 has not been seen outside a laboratory since then.
SARS had three outbreaks, beginning with the worldwide epidemic of more than 8,000 cases that began in November 2002 and ended in June 2003. The second ran from December 2003 through January 2004 that involved a milder strain of the virus, and the nine cases traced to laboratory accidents in China, Taiwan and Singapore between March and May of last year.
