WHO has lowered the official global death toll from severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) to 774, from the previously reported figure of 916, following a revision by authorities in Taiwan.
The Taiwanese government said on Oct 3 that it officially recognised 346 SARS cases and 37 deaths, compared with earlier figures of 665 cases and 180 deaths. New antibody tests were done on stored samples from patients previously thought to be infected.
The Taiwanese Center of Disease Control said that during the outbreak, many people were listed as SARS patients and quarantined after they developed common SARS symptoms. But many had non-SARS related pneumonia or other chronic illnesses that were misdiagnosed.
Other governments also made minor changes: Hong Kong reduced its death toll by one to 299 and the USA has reduced its number of cases by four to 29, WHO said.
“Everybody is going back to re-examine what is happening because we have finally got some breathing time”, said WHO spokesman Dick Thompson.
Separately, WHO warned of the risk of inadequate safety procedures in laboratories researching the virus following the infection of a student at a government laboratory in Singapore.
It said it was anxious to verify that all Chinese laboratories handling the virus were at Biosafety Level 3. So far, Chinese authorities have not informed the UN health agency how many labs are holding the virus.
“The big risk, to my mind, is laboratories that are below level 3”, said John MacKenzie, head of WHO's SARS laboratory group.
“Not only the operators might be infected, but he or she might infect other people nearby. We are in the process of trying to find out [the situation in China] right now”, he told a press conference.