EDITORIAL – A recurring pestilence

The stories have receded from the headlines, but it will take time before the world can rest easy over Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. Last month there was troubling news that some SARS patients who had reco-vered had suffered a relapse. A few days ago Toronto suffered a fresh outbreak of suspected SARS, prompting the World Health Organization to put the Canadian city back on the SARS watch list. Of the 11 new SARS cases in Toronto, seven were Filipinos.

The world still awaits the release of a reliable and speedy SARS diagnostic kit. An experimental drug deve-loped by Pfizer, the pharmaceutical firm renowned for giving the world Viagra, has been touted as a possible cure for SARS. No one, however, is raising false hopes about a surefire cure. The battle against viral diseases, after all, has lagged behind the one against bacterial afflictions. The best defense scientists have developed so far against the lethal virus that causes AIDS, after more than a decade of research, is a cocktail of drugs that merely delays death. And to this day no one has found a cure even for the common cold.

A week ago the Philippines was finally stricken off the WHO’s SARS watch list. Health officials have emphasized that so far there has been no local transmission of the SARS virus, unless you count the case of Mauricio Catalon, who contracted the disease from his daughter Adela. But Adela was a health worker from Toronto who returned to her Philippine hometown to care for her cancer-stricken father. Within less a month upon her return she succumbed to SARS; Mauricio followed days later. None of those they came in contact with during their ailment has developed SARS.

This does not mean, however, that the nation can let down its guard. The SARS virus is still wreaking havoc in Taiwan and China. As the case of Toronto showed, a city or country can be returned to the SARS watch list. Scientists have said the SARS virus is here to stay, or at least to linger for some time. There is no room for complacency in keeping out this virus.