The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday that Vietnam has successfully contained the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).

"Vietnam has stopped the outbreak within its borders," said Dr. Pascale Brudon, WHO Representative to Vietnam, at a news conference. "WHO would like to congratulate Vietnam on being the first country in the world to contain SARS."

WHO said its conclusion came after careful monitoring of the country's current situation, which found no new reported cases of SARS since April 8, and no cases of it spreading to other countries.

The organization's announcement is extraordinarily significant for Vietnam since it was one of four countries initially identified by the WHO on March 15 as having a local transmission of SARS, and a total of 63 SARS cases and five deaths prior to April 8 had been reported in the country.

The WHO experts recommended that the absence of any new cases for a continuous 20-day (as of April 28) period was an encouraging indication which showed that appropriate detective and protective measures were able to contain the outbreak of SARS and prevent it from further spreading.

"Vietnam has effectively worked in partnership with other governments, WHO and WHO's partners to stop its outbreak of SARS," said David Heymann, Executive Director of WHO's Communicable Diseases Cluster.

"We are pleased that other countries in the region with local transmission of SARS are also following appropriate detection and protection measures, and cooperating with each other to do so," he added.

The organization's experts also warned that Vietnam should still maintain a high level of alert since even a single new case of SARS could spark another outbreak.

(Xinhua News Agency April 29, 2003)