Hong Kong reels as virus cases rise

10.15am

HONG KONG - Hong Kong has reported 39 new infections and three deaths from a deadly respiratory virus, and a top doctor in the battered Chinese region said its health care system was in crisis.

The latest figures took the total of confirmed cases of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in Hong Kong to 800, and the local death toll to 20, a government spokesman said on Saturday.

The pneumonia-like disease, which may have originated in southern China, hit the city in March and has been spread around the world by air travellers.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has issued an unprecedented warning against travel to Hong Kong and Guangdong.

Malaysia reported its first likely death from SARS, which has now killed more than 80 people and infected over 2,500 worldwide. Singapore, with six fatalities, said it would keep its schools closed for several more days to allay public fears.

France confirmed its first two cases of SARS infection, two doctors who flew back together from Hanoi. An air hostess who travelled on the same flight is in hospital as a suspected case.

British health authorities said on Saturday a suspected case of SARS had been reported regarding a woman who returned to Britain from Singapore on March 25. It was the fourth suspected case reported in UK. The three others have been discharged from hospital.

In hard-hit Hong Kong, 10 health workers were among the 39 new SARS cases revealed on Saturday.

According to the Ming Pao newspaper, Dr Tse Chun Yan, a senior physician at one hospital, wrote in a memo to his staff: "The entire Hospital Authority is in crisis."

Beijing, meanwhile, began sending its first daily reports on new SARS infections and deaths to the WHO, nearly five months after the first victim caught the virus in its southern province of Guangdong, which borders Hong Kong.

China, which has seen 136,000 foreign tourists cancel visits and fears more economic fall-out, issued a muted apology for its handling of the crisis so far, through Li Liming, director of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.

Li told domestic media in Beijing on Friday: "Today we apologise here to all of you that our health departments did not have enough close cooperation with the media."

"We did not make good use of our health team to help conduct mass science publicity which would have helped people grasp an understanding of the disease, enhance their ability to prevent the disease and be better aware of their own health," Li said.

But it did not appear that the official regrets were intended for public consumption: foreign media were not invited to Li's news conference and his apology went unreported in the Chinese state media on Saturday.

China has come under fire for failing to report early and openly on the disease that emerged in Guangdong, infecting hundreds before spreading in March to Hong Kong and beyond.

Its state-controlled media operated under a virtual blackout even as Hong Kong and Singapore announced quarantines, school closures and gave daily updates on infections.

In the Guangdong capital, Guangzhou, a team of WHO experts hunting for clues on the disease met provincial health officials and recovered victims of SARS, and travelled to Foshan where the first case emerged in November.

China, which has suffered more than half of all deaths and infections from the disease, fears the effects of SARS on tourism and the flow of foreign direct investment.

Guangdong is a key engine of growth for China. Foshan, for example, makes 80 percent of the world's microwave ovens.

Chinese Health Minister Zhang Wenkang has stressed that the outbreak is under "effective control", and Guangzhou still plans to host its flagship trade fair this year. But analysts say that global high-tech supply routes are threatened by SARS-related manufacturing disruptions and travel bans.

Millions of Chinese are due to be on the move over the week-long May 1 Labour Day holidays. China, which counts on three "Golden Week" holidays a year to help fuel consumer spending, appeared eager to keep public concern at a minimum.

"All of China's tourist attractions are guaranteed to be safe and healthy," said a headline in the People's Daily.

The public is not so sure. At Beijing's Babaoshan Cemetery, some mourners wore facemasks on Saturday to visit the graves of ancestors for the annual Ching Ming tomb-sweeping festival.

Although WHO says the disease is less infectious than influenza, and the death rate from SARS so far has been between three and four percent, experts say patients in areas without good medical facilities face a higher mortality risk.

The disease has squeezed air travel and cut hotel occupancy rates in some Asian hotspots, reached 19 countries or regions and has many governments bracing to meet the threat.

Vietnam, where the spread of the disease was thought to be in check, quarantined a doctor suspected of catching SARS from a patient, along with 43 others with whom he had contact.

Australia posted doctors and nurses at major airports on Saturday to monitor travellers for SARS, armed with the power to quarantine people with suspected symptoms.

In the United States, which has 115 suspected cases of SARS, President George W. Bush issued an executive order allowing health officials to use forced quarantine of patients if needed.

Continental Airlines suspended Hong Kong to New York flights until the end of May, and the national airline in Mauritius halted flights to Singapore and Malaysia over SARS fears.

- REUTERS