The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said it is confident that the incidence of a suspected respiratory illness known as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) is being contained.
A Dublin hospital is today treating the first suspected Irish case of the syndrome. The patient is understood to have recently returned to Ireland on a flight from South-East Asia.
Mr David Heymann, executive director of the WHO's communicable diseases unit, said: "The outbreak we feel is on its way to containment, at least outside of Vietnam, and Hong Kong and China - if the outbreak in China is linked."
The illness has flu-like symptoms of high fever and fatigue as well as respiratory problems that can also develop into potentially fatal pneumonia.
"The global alert will continue until the outbreaks are contained in Hong Kong, Vietnam and we have information from China," he told reporters.
Mr Heymann was speaking as the death toll directly attributable to SARS rose to seven and 250 infections, according to various national health authorities.
Two of the 11 laboratories, which are trying to identify the illness, had now identified a link with the paramyxoviridae family of viruses.
"There's now a clue about what might be causing this disease," Mr Heymann said. The WHO issued a global alert to health authorities last week, triggering a worldwide system of detection and containment for any patients that may show symptoms of SARS.
Mr Heymann said there were no official travel restrictions, although travellers and doctors should be aware of the symptoms of SARS.
No secondary transmission of SARS had occurred since the global alert was issued, with "isolated cases" outside the three Asian countries being contained, according to WHO. "However, cases were imported to Canada before the world was alerted, there was transmission in Canada," Mr Heymann said.
WHO global alert co-ordinator Mr Mike Ryan said the relatively large number of suspected cases, which were subsequently ruled out showed that the global precautions were effective. "Many of these reports that you will hear will turn out to be spurious.
AFP