- Upgraded surveillance at Australian airports is being
considered among tougher measures to reduce the risk of a lethal new pneumonia
arriving in the country.
-
- Health authorities are also believed to be considering
sharper travel warnings to Australians visiting nations affected by the
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which has been blamed for at least 59
deaths worldwide.
-
- The chief Commonwealth Medical Officer, Richard Smallwood,
prepared Australia for the likelihood that SARS would inevitably reach
Australia. Given people movements within South-East Asia, he said, the
chances were that cases "will be found in Australia".
-
- A visiting World Health Organisation official, Alan Hampson,
also said it was unrealistic to think Australia could "keep it out
totally". But he added that he did not think it would "become
an uncontrolled thing here".
-
- In Australia, the heightened surveillance could mean
stationing health officials at airports to check suspect cases, but authorities
would not be drawn on whether they would follow the lead of Singapore,
which has stationed nurses at its international airport.
-
- But Professor Smallwood warned travellers intending to
visit SARS hotspots, particularly Hong Kong and Singapore, that if they
became ill there, "they will probably not be able to fly out until
they are well again".
-
- Airlines operating out of these areas, such as Qantas,
Air New Zealand, Thai and Singapore, are now supplying surgical face masks
for crew and passengers. On Qantas flights, passengers within a six-row
radius of any person identified during flight as displaying flu-like symptoms
will be given masks.
-
- "Crew dealing directly [with a passenger] will be
masked and we won't stop people wearing their own masks on flights,"
a Qantas spokeswoman said.
-
- Mr Hampson said the pattern of the disease overseas suggested
it was most dangerous in areas experiencing overcrowding and with poor
health services.
-
- SARS has infected more than 1600 people worldwide.
-
- Two people from NSW are still under investigation for
SARS and there is an unconfirmed case of the syndrome in the ACT, bringing
to about 30 the total number of suspect cases which have been examined
in Australia. In Hong Kong, 92 new cases of SARS were reported within a
single housing estate yesterday, bringing the total number of infections
in the territory to more than 620. Health officials in surgical gear and
policemen in face masks cordoned Amoy Gardens. During the 10-day quarantine
period, no one will be allowed to enter or leave the estate without written
permission of a health officer.
-
- In Singapore, 954 people have been quarantined and schools
have been closed. In Canada, health officials confirmed a fourth person
had died from SARS in Toronto, bringing the number of probable cases to
more than 100.
-
- Mr Hampson, the deputy director of the WHO's collaborating
centre for reference and research on influenza, called the response of
some foreign governments as draconian over-reactions.
-
- "I would just like to contrast it with influenza.
We know Australia will lose 1000 lives this year because of influenza and
there are tens of thousands of people infected with it, but it doesn't
cause as much concern as this disease."
-
- Disease control experts are now voicing fears that the
virus can be spread through the air instead of through contact with saliva
or mucous.
-
- http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/03/31/1048962705241.html
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