- BEIJING (Reuters) - Almost
20 more people were reported killed by SARS in China and Hong Kong on Sunday,
and Chinese authorities canceled a week-long national holiday to dissuade
people from traveling and spreading the virus.
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- China reported an alarming spike -- it said 12 more people
had died and about 300 more were infected by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome
virus, virtually all of them in the Beijing area.
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- That was an almost 10-fold increase in the number of
cases from Beijing and the new figures appeared aimed at answering criticism
that China, initially at least, had tried to hide the extent of the disease.
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- Authorities in Hong Kong said seven more people had died
and 22 more were infected, taking the death toll in the city to 88, the
highest in the world.
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- Singapore closed down one of the city-state's largest
vegetable markets after a dealer was infected by the disease, but did not
report any new fatalities.
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- The disease, which is fatal in more than five percent
of cases and has no known cure, has now killed 203 people and infected
nearly 3,900 around the world. No one is sure in how many ways it is spread.
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- SARS is passed in droplets, by coughing and sneezing,
but the World Health Organization is not ruling out the possibility that
it may also be transmitted when people touch objects such as lift buttons,
or that it could be passed on in fecal matter.
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- ILL PREPARED
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- China's Vice Health Minister Gao Qiang blamed the surge
in cases on a health care system ill prepared to handle a sudden outbreak
such as SARS, which emerged in Guangdong in November and has been spread
around the world by air travelers since February.
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- "Diagnosing has been relatively difficult. The Health
Ministry's preparations to handle sudden public health incidents is insufficient,
and the efforts to counter epidemics are relatively weak," Gao said
in a statement.
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- Doctors in Beijing have said for weeks the toll in Beijing
was far higher than that being reported.
-
- A senior military doctor had said the government had
failed to report at least 140 cases in Beijing military hospitals and was
hiding the extent of SARS for the sake of stability during the annual parliament
session in March.
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- Gao said also the Golden Week holidays in early May were
being canceled to discourage travel.
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- "The purpose of such an act is to avoid the flow
of massive numbers of people, which potentially could lead to the spread
of this epidemic," he told a news conference.
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- "I'm sure this measure will mean major losses for
tourism revenues. However, people's lives and people's health have to be
put above everything else," Gao said.
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- Tens of millions of travelers had been expected to be
on the move, filling trains, planes, buses and hotels throughout the massive
country.
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- China has in recent years extended the May 1 holiday
to a full week in a bid to spur consumption. Gao said China would still
allow the normal one-day holiday, but the extended week had been canceled
to discourage widespread travel.
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- "DWINDLING THREAT"
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- But the WHO said the threat of a global SARS pandemic
was receding.
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- "The vast majority of countries reporting probable
SARS cases are dealing with a small number of imported cases," the
WHO said in an update on its Web site at www.who.int.
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- "Experience has shown that when these cases are
promptly detected, isolated, and managed...further spread to hospital staff
and family members either does not occur at all or results in a very small
number of secondary infections," it said.
-
- But the WHO said it was concerned about the outbreaks
in Hong Kong and Canada. It said a large and sudden cluster of almost simultaneous
cases seen in residents of a Hong Kong housing estate had raised the possibility
of transmission from an environmental source.
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- It said the disease appeared to be more severe both in
residents of the estate and in related cases among hospital staff. It could
be that those patients had exceptionally high levels of virus in their
bodies, it said, or the virus, which belongs to the coronavirus family,
may have mutated.
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- In Canada, the WHO worried about an outbreak among 31
people including members of a religious group, their relatives and health
care workers who treated them.
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- Singapore authorities ordered a food market to shut after
three people who worked there contracted the virus, threatening the government's
battle to confine the disease to hospitals.
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- The number of confirmed cases in Singapore has risen
to 177, the fourth highest in the world, and Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong
said the city state could be facing its worst crisis ever.
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- http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_237364,00300006.htm
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