World News Estimated SARS death rate increases

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The death rate from severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) has increased sharply since the epidemic began, and the new lung infection is now killing about 15 percent of victims overall, the World Health Organization (WHO) concluded May 7.

It remains unclear whether the death rate is increasing as the disease spreads, or whether the true death rate is emerging as more data become available. In either case, the relatively high death rate underscores the seriousness of the threat, WHO said.

According to the new calculations, SARS kills less than 1 percent of those 24 or younger, but the death rate jumps to 6 percent at ages 25 to 44, to 15 percent for those 45 to 64 and to more than 50 percent for those 65 and older, WHO said.

That means SARS has a death rate far higher than those of most other respiratory infections. The typical flu season has a death rate of less than 1 percent. The devastating Spanish flu of 1918 to 1919 had a death rate of less than 3 percent.

SARS does not appear to be as contagious as the flu, but it is the first dangerous new disease that can be spread directly from one person to another to emerge in decades, and it remains untreatable.

The new estimates are based on an analysis of the most recent data from everywhere SARS has erupted - Canada, China, Singapore, Vietnam and Hong Kong.

SARSによる死亡率が上昇

　世界保健機関（WHO）は7日、現在の新型肺炎「重症急性呼吸器症候群」（SARS）による死亡率は15%まで上昇したと発表した。

Shukan ST: May 16, 2003

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