Hong Kong Sets Up Disease Quarantine
By DIRK BEVERIDGE
The Associated Press
Thursday, March 27, 2003
The government here said Thursday it would quarantine more than 1,000 people and close its schools, while the World Health Organization urged airlines with some international flights to screen passengers for the deadly flu-like illness.
The Geneva-based U.N. agency fighting to contain the disease said its latest warning was for international flights leaving affected areas - Toronto, Hong Kong, Singapore, Hanoi, Taiwan and Guangdong province, China.
The WHO said passengers should be asked if they have flu-like symptoms or if they may have had contact with anyone infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome. Anyone answering yes should not be permitted to fly.
The new warning about airline travel reflects heightened concern by the world health agency, which previously had said the disease was unlikely to spread on airplanes. However, Hong Kong reported nine passengers became ill from exposure to one passenger on a flight earlier this month.
The WHO's request will go to the world's governments, and it will be up to them to decide whether to enforce it with airlines. Asia has been hardest-hit by the disease, which has a 4 percent death rate, but there are 45 suspected cases in the United States and three people in Canada have also died from it.
There is no treatment for the disease, which is believed to be a virus.
Testifying before Congress Thursday, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said, "It's spreading a little bit faster than we anticipated."
He also said SARS is believed to have infected 1,500 people; the WHO is reporting over 1,300 cases. The number of deaths Thursday rose to 54, based on information from government officials.
In their new warning, WHO officials said close contact in a plane - which they described as sitting within two rows of an infected person - was compounded by the length of flights.
"Exposure in a plane is much longer than, say, in an elevator," said the WHO's infectious diseases chief, Dr. David Heymann.
Meanwhile, Asian officials continued to take harsh measures to get the disease under control. Singapore, which earlier quarantined hundreds of people, also shut its schools, and weekend concerts in Hong Kong by the Rolling Stones were postponed for fear of the disease.
Those steps came a day after mainland China disclosed a sharply higher death toll for the flu-like illness, spreading fears of a wider outbreak.
Thousands of Hong Kong residents wore surgical masks while going about town, giving this vibrant city the feel of a sprawling hospital ward. The Health Department recommended masks only for people with flu-like symptoms so they won't infect others.
"If people feel more safe wearing a mask, it is up to them to decide," Health Department spokeswoman Sally Kong said.
The Taiwanese capital of Taipei declared a full medical alert Thursday after a major engineering company temporarily closed because five of its employees were suspected of being infected. They had recently traveled to mainland China.
Hong Kong's government leader, Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa, said Thursday night that officials had ordered the quarantine of 1,080 people believed to have been in close contact with SARS victims. They are being urged to stay home and must check in regularly with health officials over a 10-day period starting Monday or they could be fined or jailed.
Tung said Hong Kong schools, except for universities, will shut down early for spring break, closing from Saturday to April 6 as a precaution.
"For the sake of our health and for the sake of the health in our community, we must win this battle," Tung told a news conference.
The quarantine affects those who have visited SARS victims in hospitals or people who recently spent time on the ninth floor of Hong Kong's Metropole Hotel, where an infected mainland Chinese medical professor passed the disease to seven other people and started a global outbreak.
Singapore, which has suffered two deaths, has already quarantined 840 people who may have had contact with victims and on Thursday shut all of its schools through April 6.
The Rolling Stones postponed a pair of weekend rock concerts in Hong Kong due to disease fears, and three rugby teams - France, Italy and Argentina - pulled out of a weekend tournament in the former British colony.
In Canada, health authorities in the most populous province have advised hundreds of people to quarantine themselves to try to stop the spread of the illness. The move is part of a health emergency declared Wednesday in Ontario due to an outbreak of SARS that has killed three people and sickened dozens of others.
Chinese authorities revealed Wednesday that 34 people in the mainland had died from SARS, including 31 in Guangdong province, where officials had previously acknowledged just 305 infections and five deaths. China said almost 800 people had been infected.
World Health Organization doctors indicated Wednesday for the first time that they were treating the Guangdong cases as part of the SARS outbreak, which apparently spread globally from Hong Kong after an infected mainland Chinese medical professor gave it to seven people at a hotel last month.
China made its latest disclosures on the disease - with three deaths also reported in Beijing - after coming under sharp international criticism and repeated requests by WHO to be more forthcoming in its cooperation and more diligent in tracking cases. |
