WHO Seeks a Probe Of Disease in Beijing
By CHARLES HUTZLER
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
BEIJING -- The World Health Organization wants to investigate the Chinese capital's handling of a deadly pneumonia following Chinese officials' failure to explain reports that the outbreak is more widespread than the government says.
The WHO request, made in meetings with senior Chinese officials, comes on the heels of allegations by a prominent Chinese doctor and anecdotal evidence that severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, might be cutting a wider swath than Beijing's official toll of 19 cases, including four deaths.
The perceived lack of transparency in Beijing contrasts with the access a team of WHO specialists said they found in China's southern Guangdong province during a visit there to search for the outbreak's source. The WHO team said Guangdong has an effective system to control the disease.
The request came as SARS took an increasing toll on Hong Kong's health-care system. Hong Kong, which neighbors Guangdong province and is the second hardest-hit location after China, is seeing doctors and nurses continue to contract the illness at a disturbing rate. And the director of intensive care at one hospital warned that death rates could rise as respirators and other resources fall into shorter supply.
In the U.S., three people likely have become the first U.S. health-care workers to contract SARS, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday. North Carolina officials identified one suspected case as a medical worker in Iredell County, north of Charlotte, who they said "was involved in the evaluation" of a case last week.
And in the most radical step yet by a country to stop SARS at its borders, Malaysia on Tuesday imposed a ban on visitors from China and Hong Kong.
SARS may have infected more than 2,900 people world-wide since November and killed at least 106. By comparison, influenza kills an average of 36,000 people a year in the U.S. alone. But SARS is of concern because it is new, and doctors are scrambling for ways to prevent and treat it.
Beijing's handling of the outbreak, in particular, has come in for criticism, amid charges that limited disclosure of information early on contributed to the illness's rapid spread. The WHO puts the number of cases in China at 1,280, with 53 deaths.
Allegations that officials are continuing to withhold information could become the latest test for the Chinese government. A WHO official said, for instance, that in the death Sunday of a Finnish labor lawyer who China's Health Ministry suggests contracted the disease on a flight from Bangkok to Beijing, city officials didn't track down fellow passengers to check for other infections.
WHO's Beijing representative, Henk Bekedam, said he hadn't received a clear answer from Chinese health officials on that or other allegations. He said Vice Premier Wu Yi, who is overseeing the government's effort to combat SARS, promised to relay the WHO's request to conduct an investigation with Beijing officials.
Ministry of Health officials also appeared in disarray over charges by a Chinese surgeon that two military-run hospitals in Beijing had 60 or more SARS patients and seven deaths. Ministry officials wouldn't say whether their figures include reports from military hospitals, raising questions about whether the figures were complete.
Meanwhile, a resurgence in infections among medical workers in Hong Kong is making the city a test case of how quickly SARS can swamp even a first-world medical system. Hong Kong Wednesday reported 42 new cases -- 15 of them medical workers -- bringing the total to 970. Since the outbreak hit Hong Kong in February, 27 people there have died.
Health authorities investigating cases of sickened medical workers say the cause is breaches in infection-control procedures. High initial infection rates among medical staff had tapered off as hospitals realized what they were dealing with and sent suspected SARS cases to wards experienced in handling infectious diseases. But as cases have mounted, hospitals have been forced to assign patients to wards where staff have less experience in infection control.
-- Matt Pottinger and Karen Richardson in Hong Kong contributed to this article.
Write to Charles Hutzler at charles.hutzler@wsj.com.
Updated April 9, 2003 10:13 p.m.
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