SARS information from Asia, Canada helped U.S. prepare

WASHINGTON -- The United States was "just ahead of the curve" and able so far to avoid large numbers of SARS cases because of information learned as the highly infectious respiratory illness spread through Asia, a top federal health official said Sunday.

"There are no new signs that it's spreading in any escalating way" in the United States, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.

President Bush has signed an executive order adding SARS to the list of diseases for which a quarantine could be imposed. "I don't expect it to happen, but we're prepared to do it if we need to," said Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"We are putting a high emphasis on early detection," she said, especially in health-care facilities. Much of the disease's spread abroad began in hospitals unprepared to contain such a highly transmittable virus.

Worldwide, SARS has killed more than 290 people and sickened more than 4,600. In the United States, there have been 41 cases but no deaths.

"We were fortunate enough to be just ahead of the curve. And in some respects, you say we were lucky, because by the time it got to the United States, we knew that there was this respiratory-borne virus that was spreading from people to people," Fauci told ABC's "This Week."

'Heightened state'

"And the real clear way that you can control this if, indeed, you're going to be successful to control it, is to have a heightened state of vigilance and alertness, so that when there are cases, you do the proper public health procedures, which we have been doing," Fauci said.

As a result, the country is "in the relatively good stead we are right now," he said. "But as soon as I say that, I cannot immediately fail to say that we've still got to take it very seriously and be very vigilant, because it does have the potential of getting out of control."

Gerberding said she thought it was safe to go to Toronto despite a travel warning by the World Health Organization to avoid the city, where SARS has killed 20 people.

"I am planning to go there next week," she told "Fox News Sunday."

"The situation in Canada is one where we recognize where the disease is being spread, and Canadian health officials can predict which groups are most at risk for acquiring or transmitting it," she said.

"So the issue is not so much traveling to Canada; it's recognizing exposure, and then not traveling if you've been exposed, leaving the country."

Asked about a possible vaccine, Fauci noted that vaccines can take years to develop. "We could get lucky with a treatment because ... one of the good news things about this is this virus grows very well in tissue culture. So we have it in our hand. We have the genetic sequence of it," he said.