HK Airline Mulls Grounding as SARS Hits Traffic
Sat April 12, 2003 10:39 AM ET
[just wondering if some cased go unreported in China? ...pb]
asia.reuters.com
By Rico Ngai and Juliana Liu
HONG KONG/BEIJING (Reuters) - Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd was considering on Saturday the complete grounding of its passenger services next month as fear of the deadly SARS virus kept its planes largely empty.
A report of two deaths in China's remote northern region of Inner Mongolia reinforced worries that the flu-like disease was spreading through the world's most populous country.
Ten cases of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) had been identified in the regional capital of Hohhot, Xinhua news agency said.
Chinese and World Health Organization (WHO) officials were not immediately available for comment.
The disease has infected more than 3,000 people and killed more than 110 across the globe since it appeared in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong in November. Analysts forecast a severe effect on some Asian economies, especially Hong Kong, where Cathay Pacific is suffering from a collapse in traffic.
"We forecast that the number of passengers could fall to less than 6,000 per day in May, in which case we will have to consider grounding the entire passenger fleet," Nick Rhodes, Cathay's director of flight operations, said in an internal memo.
"We are literally hemorrhaging cash -- approximately US$3 million per day," he said in the email, sighted by Reuters. "The current strategy is simply to stem the bleeding and buy time."
Cathay, Hong Kong's largest airline and one of Asia's biggest, said later that it was not currently planning to ground its services.
WHO's Web Site (http://www.int/en/) for the first time showed Japan among countries with reported probable cases of SARS.
The Japanese government said it had dropped its policy of reporting only confirmed cases, Kyodo news agency reported.
The government also urged Japanese travelers to be careful on trips to Beijing.
Hong Kong and mainland Chinese health experts said they had confirmed that the virus in China was the same as the one in Hong Kong, debunking the assertion of some Chinese doctors that SARS came from a common microbe, chlamydia pneumoniae, a cause of pneumonia as well as sexually transmitted infections.
Like Hong Kong SARS sufferers, patients in China showed evidence of a new strain of coronavirus, best known as a cause of the common cold, the University of Hong Kong said.
CHINA WORRIES
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visited a Beijing hospital treating SARS patients in one of the highest profile acknowledgements of the virus in China.
WHO officials said on Friday the epidemic was being contained elsewhere in the world but that they were worried about China.
Nearly a month after WHO launched its first ever global alert because of the mystery disease that has created panic in much of Asia, the worst-hit region, WHO nevertheless said there were signs that SARS may have peaked.
But on Saturday Hong Kong reported yet another 49 cases and three more deaths.
"I think we are fighting a losing battle," said Peter Hung, a 33-year-old Hong Kong security guard. "The number of cases has shot up again and you can see the pattern that more and more people who have been infected are from the wider community.
"I think the chances of me getting it are about 50/50," Hung said through his heavy-duty facemask.
Singapore warned its residents that SARS would not go away overnight but said it was learning to live with the illness.
One patient who had repeatedly broken a quarantine order would have to wear an electronic tag, the government said.
An outbreak of the virus at the nation's biggest hospital showed little sign of abating; three of seven new cases reported on Saturday had a connection with the hospital.
Singapore, which has the world's fourth-highest number of cases, said it had beefed up its defenses against the virus in the past two days.
"We are now better able to cope with SARS," Minister for Education and Second Minister for Defense Teo Chee Hean said in a speech. "SARS will not go away overnight and we cannot be isolating ourselves."
SHOPPING CROWDS
Such reassurances appear to have instilled some confidence. Several shops reported trade was recovering as crowds again swelled on the main shopping street, Orchard Road.
"It is pretty much better than the last two weeks but it has been very bad during the weekdays; it seems like people tend to go home straight after work," said Dylan Lim, a 21-year-old sales assistant in a shoe shop on Orchard Road.
Nurses and air force paramedics at the main airport, armed with the power to quarantine, are now taking the temperature of all travelers from Hong Kong and China's Guangdong province, two areas hit hardest by SARS.
Sick-looking people from SARS-hit regions are already quizzed on their health while stepping into Singapore, and two women who had arrived from Hong Kong and China on Thursday are now quarantined as suspected SARS cases. (Additional reporting by Jason Szep in Singapore and Richard Waddington in Geneva) |
