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Britain off SARS affected list

Britain off SARS affected list

After 20 days without further outbreaks of SARS, the World Health Organisation has removed both Britain and America from its list of infected countries.

According to WHO protocol, if a country sees no further outbreaks of the disease during a 20 day period – twice that SARS’ incubation – then the WHO removes the state from the list of affected states.

A spokeswoman for the WHO explained: ‘The United States and the United Kingdom have both been removed from the affected areas list as they have not seen any cases of local transmission for 20 days.’

However, 30 states currently remain on the list of infected countries. For the main these states are based in the Far East. Non-Asian states (with the exception of Canada) which are mentioned are usually because of isolated cases of the virus.

SARS has now claimed 391 lives and 5,895 casualties.