Dick Thompson, spokesman for the Center for Communicable Diseases at the World Health Organization, warns in a conversation with Ynet: Sars may also reach Israel and cause a very serious health crisis. According to him, this is no longer a syndrome but a real disease
Moti Gal, YNET
Dick Thompson, spokesman for the Center for Communicable Diseases at the World Health Organization, warns that Israeli citizens should also be concerned about the spread of the Sars virus. In an interview with Ynet, Thompson says that "there is a chance that the disease will reach you as well, and from the moment an infected person is hospitalized, there will be a lot of pressure on the health system that could lead to its collapse and a very serious health crisis."
According to him, "in Toronto there are currently two hospitals that are completely closed. They postpone surgeries, dead people, hospitalized people cannot enter the quarantined hospital. Nurses and doctors feel uncomfortable treating the SARS patients. We have health teams there who have been working with the Sars patients for 45 days, and are also quarantined inside the hospital because they are afraid to return home and infect their family members. This cannot be sustained for a long time. This is why everyone in Israel should be concerned about the impact of the disease."
What are your recommendations to the heads of health in Israel?
"In Israel they know very well how to treat the disease. Every suspicious case must be closely monitored. Any case of respiratory illness or fever must be immediately isolated in a hospital, and the cause identified. In this way it will be possible to eradicate the global outbreaks".
What is the current situation around the world?
"There is an outbreak in several centers, but it seems that the heads of health are managing to control the outbreak. I emphasize that this is an outbreak and not an epidemic. If outbreaks are controlled, the disease can be controlled, while an epidemic may return from time to time."
The health ministers in Singapore and Toronto claimed in the media that the outbreaks there had been contained. Do you agree with their statements?
"definitely not. The cases of infection have not been stopped either in Singapore or Toronto. Although the number of cases is small, even if the situation is better than before, it does not mean that the outbreak has been stopped. One case is enough to cause a lot of damage. They are optimistic, which is good because there is no proliferation and things are going in the right direction, but there are many more problems that they have to deal with. The main idea is that at any moment there may be additional cases of infection."
Where is the worst situation?
"Without a doubt - in China. The problem there is very, very difficult, especially in the populated areas of Beijing. China has to decide whether the disease will stay with us or not. The disease started in the Guangzong area, and now they have a number of hospitals under control and they know very well how to treat the disease, but it is still spreading to many areas, a fact that worries us a lot."
What is the situation in other places in the world?
"Currently there are about 25 infected countries, but in most of them there are no reports of many cases. There are two or three, and a maximum of six cases per country. People adhere to the quarantine, and this is the most important step in eradication."
In the medical literature, SARS is called "acute respiratory syndrome". Isn't it time to change the medical definition of the disease?
"Definitely. Now that we have identified the corona virus as the cause of the syndrome, it does look like a disease. But for the global population, it doesn't matter if the definition is one or the other, we respond to outbreaks, and we will continue and act in the same way."
Why does the virus cause deterioration from pneumonia to death?
"We have some clues, and these suggest that it is the immune response that causes the damage, but we still don't have an answer. We only follow the disease for about two months. There are about 13 centers that are involved in the research of the disease, and we hope that there will be progress in the research."
A number of Chinese scientists reported this week the presence of the chlamydia bacterium in the bodies of seven residents who died of the disease. Are you following the report?
"The Chinese already reported in February that the fatal pneumonia they saw was caused by chlamydia, but chlamydia causes a respiratory disease that is found in many people. This is a common disease especially in winter. We at the World Health Organization thought it was an accidental infection. We invested a lot of time in testing whether the corona virus is indeed the cause of the disease, and in all the tests we conducted in laboratories and on animals, we received the same answer: the corona virus is the cause of the disease."
If so, once the cause of the disease is identified, what is the problem in finding the long-awaited cure?
"The problem is that you have to find something that will kill the virus and not kill the person, and we are still looking for this thing."
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