Posted on 05/20/2003 10:30:53 AM PDT by AntiGuv
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - People are likely to die from the SARS disease in Europe and the United States later this year, U.S. Health Secretary Tommy Thompson said Tuesday.
Severe acute respiratory syndrome has so far killed more than 600 of the almost 8,000 people known to have been infected. The vast majority of deaths have so far been in China and Hong Kong, with none reported in the United States or Europe.
Asked by reporters in Brussels how confident he was there would be no deaths in his country or Europe, Thompson said: "I am not confident at all. I think you will see some.
"I don't think SARS is going to go away. I am not a doctor or researcher but my doctors...believe that even though SARS could level off now, it may come back in the fall," he said.
"Then I think you can anticipate that you will have deaths in all continents, or a lot of continents," he added after speaking to a committee of the European Parliament.
Apart from 23 fatalities in Canada, all the deaths from the flu-like virus, for which there is no known treatment, have been in Asia.
Airlines and travel companies have blamed SARS for a downturn in business, but Thompson said enough people were still traveling to make the spread of SARS seem inevitable.
"With the tremendous transit populations you have at the moment, you've got to assume that someone from Europe will pick it up and bring it back," he said.
Among the firms smarting from SARS are airlines such as Northwest, which has said traffic on its Atlantic flights slipped 25 percent in April, and United, which has reduced its flights from East Asia.
Thompson said he strongly recommended people did not travel to China, Hong Kong and Taiwan while U.S. government warnings were in place. And he could offer the airlines no comfort in the short-term.
"To the airlines I say: I'm sorry, but my job is to protect the public health of Americans," he said.
He said if the spread of SARS could be curtailed by curbing travel, it would ultimately help the airlines as people would be able to fly to affected destinations once more.
"But if the epidemic continues, there will be even more countries that we'll have to put a travel advisory on," he said.
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