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Deaths to soar among HIV+
21/04/2003 11:27 - (SA)
Tokyo - The French biologist who was the joint discoverer of the HIV/Aids virus voiced fears on Monday that the death rate from Sars will be much higher among people who are HIV-positive or suffering from full-blown Aids.
"SARS is caused by another virus (different to HIV), and it does not kill lots of people - around four to five percent (of those infected). But if the immune system is depressed by Aids, the toll would be much higher," Luc Montagnier said at a press conference in Tokyo.
"It would be very alarming if people would be infected with both Sars and Aids... It is a concern especially for southern China where you have both Aids infection ongoing and Sars starting."
The World Health Organisation said on Monday the death toll from severe acute respiratory syndrome in China had risen to 86, with 1 959 confirmed cases on Sunday.
Montagnier said isolating patients suffering from severe acute respiratory syndrome and placing suspect cases in quarantine early on were the right things to do to prevent the spread of the disease.
"We are just beginning to learn how it is transmitted, the nature of virus... it is very difficult to mount a policy of treatment and prevention," he said, adding that so far the only treatment for the potentially deadly pneumonia is to boost the natural resistance of the carrier.
"My strong advice would be for people exposed to the virus to reinforce their immune systyem with anti-oxydants, immuno-stimulants," he said.
Despite the lack of an effective drug treatment, Montagnier was relatively optimistic about the development of the epidemic, arguing that there are many tools available for tracking and controlling its spread.
"An epidemic where 95% of the people survive hasn't got much chance of going very far," he said, pointing out that there are "many more people who died from 'flu every year."
Commenting on the fact that Japan has yet to report a confirmed case of Sars, Montagnier said it was not possible to be absolutely sure because of the problems with diagnosing Sars as opposed to other forms of pneumonia, but he said that Japanese hygiene habits would help prevent infection.
"In Japan, they have very good hygiene, putting on masks when they get a cough. They naturally take precautions," he said.
Japan has monitored 53 cases of suspected or probable cases of Sars of which 44 have already been definitively ruled out as atypical pneumonia, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda told a press conference earlier in the day. - Sapa-AFP
- SAPA
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