Optimism over the falling incidents of SARS in Asia has been tempered by a resurgence of the deadly virus in Canada after the country's biggest city, Toronto, registered eight new probable cases.
As life begins returning to normal in SARS hotspots, Beijing and Hong Kong; Canadian health officials are investigating a suspected new infection cluster in the financial hub of Toronto, where three new fatalities brought the death toll to 27.
Authorities have asked more than 800 people to enter quarantine in an effort to control the latest outbreak, which surfaced 12 days after the World Health Organisation (WHO) took the city off its danger list.
Eight probable incidents are part of a cluster of 34 suspected cases that surfaced last Thursday. Dr Colin D'Cunha, chief medical officer for the state of Ontario, said 26 of the cases were considered suspected SARS cases and remain under investigation.
Canadian Foreign Minister Mr Bill Graham said in Berlin today that he hoped to raise the issue of SARS at this weekend's G8 summit in on the French/Swiss border.
The new cluster of possible cases has prompted US health officials to issue a new travel alert for the city despite the WHO declining to do so.
On Friday the WHO lifted an advisory against travel to Hong Kong and southern China's Guangdong province, where the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome is believed to have originated in November.
Only two new infections have been reported in Hong Kong since the advisory was removed, prompting the former British colony to draft plans to revitalise its badly-hit tourism and business sectors.
In China, which has a nationwide SARS death toll of 317, half in Beijing, authorities are claiming the disease is largely confined to the capital as tumbling infection rates eased fears of a countrywide mass infection.
Meanwhile, in Taiwan, where officials insist the outbreak is coming under control, a leading Taipei health manager became the third senior government official to quit over the handling of the island's SARS crisis.
Ms Chiu Shu-ti, Taipei's health chief, tendered her resignation as the island reported 15 new cases of the respiratory illness today, bringing the country's caseload to 585. So far, 72 people have died from the illness on the island.
In Singapore, where SARS has killed 31 people out of 206 cases, leaders are warning of the need for a stimulus package to stimulate an economy ravaged by the disease.
Meanwhile, hopes of discovering an antidote were boosted by the discovery that SARS antibodies were discovered in southern Chinese traders who sold wild animals believed to have been the source of the disease.
Following the discovery of the virus in the endangered civet cat - a delicacy in China - researchers found several traders were carrying SARS antibodies without developing symptoms.
AFP