As the battle against Sars continues in Malaysia, several other countries in the region have reported partial victories in containing the spread of the deadly disease.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) announced yesterday that the number of new cases of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in core affected areas appears to have abated.

Vietnam victory

In a press release yesterday, WHO praised Vietnam for successfully preventing the spread of the disease since the last reported probable cases o­n April 8.

"Vietnam becomes the first country to be removed from the list of countries with local transmission of Sars. The status change...is especially significant because it was o­ne of four countries initially identified o­n March 15 as having local transmission of Sars," said the WHO.

"The absence of any new cases for a continuous 20-day period is an encouraging indicator that appropriate detection and protection measures are able to contain outbreaks and prevent their further spread."

Based o­n reported statistics, Vietnam had a total of 63 probable Sars cases and five deaths prior to April 8.

The three other countries originally identified by the organisation were China, Singapore and Canada.

Cautious approach

WHO chief of communicable diseases David Heymann said yesterday during a Sars summit in Bangkok that the worst appeared to be over for Hong Kong, Singapore and Canada.

However, this assessment was greeted with caution by Singapore's Health Minister Lim Hng Kiang, who told Reuters news agency today that the view may be premature, given an average of three new cases a day in the island republic over the past 10 days.

To cope with hospital-based infection, Singapore authorities have started turning away visitors from medical facilities.

Just last week, Singapore moved swiftly to quarantine over 2,000 people who work at the Pasir Panjang wet market after a vendor fell ill with the atypical pneumonia.

The discovery also placed more than 200 Malaysians o­n the government's wanted list for quarantine purposes as they might also have been exposed to the vendor.

New countries

The Sars situation in the main problem area - China - saw no signs of letting up. The WHO says the disease is spreading there with hundreds of new cases daily, although the authorities have begun to take stricter measures.

Today, the country reported another 202 infections and nine deaths with over half of the cases concentrating in the capital Beijing. This took the country's total number of cases to more than 3,300 with 148 fatalities.

In addition, new cases were reported late last week as far inland as the Mongolian capital of Ulan Bator.

As of today, Sars cases have been reported in 27 countries worldwide. Since last week a host of new countries have reported Sars cases, including the Philippines, Switzerland, Spain and Brazil.

In addition, India has reported its second suspected cases while Indonesia revealed its first suspected death yesterday.

Lower growth estimates

Countries affected by Sars continue to reel from the backlash due to the slump in business activity and tourism-related activities.

Administrators in Toronto have adopted an aggressive approach to repair the damaged reputation of Canada's biggest city, assuring prospective visitors that it is safe to return to the area. However, business is expected to be slow for some time.

In its annual forecast, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) yesterday revealed a lower growth forecast for Asia's 41 developing economies at 5.3 percent for this year, compared to 5.7 percent for 2002.

The Sars outbreak is estimated to have shaven off between 0.1 to 0.2 percent of growth for the developing countries.

For East Asia as a whole, economic growth is expected to slow to 5.6 percent in 2003 from 6.5 percent in 2002. Southeast Asia is expected to grow by 4 percent this year compared to 4.1 percent last year.

All is not doom and gloom. The ADB, in its Asian Development Outlook report 2003, found that despite Sars and the Iraq conflict, Asia will still be the world's economic bright spot for 2003-2004.