Ready for your daily ration of scary SARS news from the Financial Times?
Ok here we go:
WHO concerns deepen over Sars spread in Taiwan
By Kathrin Hille in Taipei and Mure Dickie in Beijing
Published: May 9 2003 18:02 | Last Updated: May 9 2003 18:02
<<see how careful crafted headline! 'concern' 'deepen' spread'. Going this way the ultimate goal will be achieved. And the ultimate goal is to provide a blockade a non-tariff barrier. Block some product from CHina, Taiwan HK. Hey, those European are crafty, I can tell you. Please note that the first mention of SARS the SWISS barred the Chinese to display jewelery at a trade fair. That was not a honest conern for health. That was what I call blockade tactics.. Keep wathcing you'll see more of that!!!?>>>
The World Health Organization is to send a larger team to Taiwan as the diplomatically isolated island faces the first community spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars).
Three old men living alone in apartments adjacent to each other in western Taipei are suspected to have caught the disease. One of them was found dead in his home Thursday evening and is believed to have died several days ago.
"We believe there is local transmission outside hospitals", Dick Thompson, WHO spokesman, said. "We will send a team of technical people in, but that is still a week away". The organization's resources were getting extremely strained.
Currently two WHO officials are screening the situation in Taiwan, which is not a WHO member. They are the first WHO delegates to the island in more than 30 years.
The government reported 18 new Sars cases on Friday, bringing the number to 149 - the biggest increase since the disease reached the island. But this was "mainly a bookkeeping correction", Mr. Thompson said, as suspected infections were confirmed. Taiwan has 229 suspected cases. The death toll stands at 13.
Doctors warned authorities must now avoid mistakes made in the management of two hospital outbreaks earlier. The city government closed the apartment block around the homes of the three old men and advised its 471 residents to return home to be quarantined.
"They should evacuate the block", said Yeh Chin-chuan, former director of the Taipei Health Department. Mr. Yeh took up work in Ho Ping hospital when it was sealed off after an outbreak among medical staff, and is now under quarantine himself. The government's step of sealing off the hospital backfired, causing a chain of cross-infections.
Meanwhile China's leaders and the state propaganda machine are stepping up efforts to ensure the nation's battle against severe acute respiratory syndrome does not undermine economic development, amid widening economic disruption caused by the deadly new form of pneumonia.
The campaign, launched under the slogan "Grasp the Treatment and Cure of Sars with One Hand and Economic Development with the Other" underlines official concerns about the economic implications of the outbreak.
Public fears over Sars, which has infected 4,805 people in China and killed 230, have already caused widespread disruption, with tourism and entertainment industries particularly hard hit.
Worries that Sars might be transported along with export shipments have also hurt orders from overseas customers of Chinese companies.
And the economic effects of the outbreak have been compounded by the government-led "people's war" against the virus, with many work units ordering impromptu holidays, and authorities imposing travel restrictions, quarantines and mass health checks.
The government has been insisting that anti-Sars efforts be balanced against development needs since late last month, but in recent days the message has been given markedly greater stress by state television and editorials in the Communist Party mouthpiece People's Daily newspaper.
Both on Friday lauded companies seen as shrugging off the effects of the disease.
Officials in Beijing - the current centre of the Sars outbreak - on Friday insisted that rate of the disease's spread was being tamed and that they would not cancel university exams early next month for over 80,000 would-be students.
Beijing reported just 48 new Sars cases on Friday, just half the level of the previous day, but experts said it was too early to judge the outbreak's course.
Indeed, Sars appears to be spreading relatively rapidly in the neighbouring province of Hebei and nearby city of Tianjin. |
