In Vietnam, authorities have successfully managed to contain the virus. But that's not the case in China, where more than half of the world's cases of the virus have occurred.
It may be a city of 14 million people but Beijing this morning did not look like it. The World Health Organisation says outbreaks of SARS have peaked in most countries. But not in China which - it says - remains the key to curbing the disease.
Beijing, though, is still seeing numbers rise. Nearly 8,000 people there have been quarantined, many will be sent to isolation camps like this one being built to the north of the capital. With nearly 140 people dead in China, the Chinese need to reassure their own citizens and the rest of the world, they're doing all they can to halt the spread of the disease that originated there.
But scenes like this at the city's railway station show the challenge facing the Chinese authorities. Thousands continue to flee the city in defiance of government bans on travel.
SARS - a virus with no known cure - has also apparently claimed its first death in Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous nation. But the disease does appear to be on the retreat. Vietnam is today expected to become the first infected country to declare itself free of SARS.
But that's not stopped the fear of its spread erupting into civil unrest. Hundreds of villagers in Taiwan stormed a company handling medical waste for a SARS infected hospital. Terrified it could spread the disease. Taiwan has introduced the most drastic attempts yet to contain SARS, quarantining all visitors from infected areas. That decision's been met with fierce criticism from Hong Kong.
Canada's been seen as a test case for what might happen if the disease gets a hold in the west. Twenty people have died in Toronto, but health officials claim there too the numbers of SARS victims is falling.
In Britain, as travellers continue to fly in from the Far East, the chief medical officer Liam Donaldson said the number of cases of SARS is likely to grow before it shrinks. But the government has decided the risk is not so severe that it should introduce health checks at airports.
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