Prayer alert
Pastor Simon Loh, 39, of Faith Assembly Of God, Singapore, yesterday died of lung failure, caused by the mysterious Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) that has hit the region.
He contracted SARS after visiting a SARS patient in the hospital to pray for her. Ironically, the patient in question is recovering and is expected to be discharged soon.
I received a message this morning that Pastor Loh's family (wife and two young children) have also been admitted to the ICU with SARS. A check with the Faith Assembly Of God homepage stresses that his family is well, but I don't know whether that is the latest news.
Regardless, please pray for a halt to the spread, and also for the scientists in the World Health Organisation (WHO) who are working to identify and isolate the cause of the outbreak, so that effective treatment can be administered. From WHO's SARS FAQ page:
- While some medicines have been tried, no drug can, at this time, be recommended for prophylaxis or treatment. Antibiotics do not appear to be effective... An international multicenter research project to expedite identification of the causative agent was established on Monday 17 March. Eleven top labs in ten countries are consulting daily and are working together to identify the causative agent.
There have been no reported cases of SARS in Malaysia, although Singapore, our southern neighbour, has seen 74 people contract the unknown illness.
Update 1: A commenter says SARS-related deaths total 17, not 53, as I reported.
Update 2: Mean Dean on blogs4God posts a letter from a friend in Singapore. The letter says, "Deaths worldwide are about 23 I believe."
Update 3: From the World Health Organization's website, latest update (Mar 28): As of today, a cumulative total of 1485 cases and 53 deaths have been reported from 13 countries. This represents an increase of 77 cases. No new deaths have occurred. (emphasis mine)