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To: EL KABONG!!! who wrote (31928)	4/20/2003 2:39:30 AM
From: EL KABONG!!!	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74559

Singapore Shuts Market Hit by SARS Infections Apr. 20, 2003 00:44 EDT SINGAPORE - Singapore has ordered a food market to shut after three people who worked there contracted the SARS virus, threatening the government's battle to contain the deadly disease to hospitals. A taxi driver who ferried one of the workers to the wholesale vegetable and produce market has also been infected, the government said late on Saturday as it announced five new cases of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. The number of confirmed cases in Singapore has risen to 177, the fourth highest in the world, and Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong said on Saturday the city state could be facing its worst crisis. Fourteen people have died in Singapore and another two deaths are suspected SARS cases. More than 200 people have died worldwide. The outbreak at the Pasir Panjang Wholesale Market was a blow to hopes that the disease would be confined mainly to patients and staff in hospitals, where the bulk of Singapore's infections has occurred, and people who have had close contact with them. The health ministry was trying to trace on Sunday those who might have been in contact with the workers at the market, which will be shut for three days. Radio and newspapers on the island state of four million asked people who had been to the market between April 5 and 18, a span of two weeks in which infections could have spread, to be alert for SARS symptoms such as a fever and cough. One of the infected workers, who died on April 12, was the brother of a hospitalized SARS patient. The worker and his wife, who has been diagnosed a probable SARS case, were regular passengers of the ill taxi driver. The taxi driver was the second to contract SARS, a development that is likely to scare more people off taking cabs. Business was already falling after a driver with a history of ferrying passengers to hospitals came down with SARS last week. Goh and other officials warned Singaporeans at the weekend not to allow fears of the disease to take the fragile economy into a tailspin. The prime minister said the battle to isolate and contain the outbreak was showing some success in limiting infection rates, but more efforts were need to tackle a climate of fear that was causing widespread damage to the transport and tourism sector. Some 100 people in Singapore have recovered from SARS and the authorities are closely watching a further 77 people, including five children, who may have caught the disease. Seventeen are seriously ill. The government has taken aggressive steps to contain SARS, quarantining hundreds, closing schools and stationing nurses at air and sea ports. Indonesia's One Probable SARS Victim in Hong Kong Apr. 19, 2003 07:03 EDT JAKARTA- A man identified as having Indonesia's only ``probable'' case of SARS has flown to Hong Kong, health officials in Jakarta and Hong Kong said on Saturday. Authorities have not revealed the name of the 47-year-old British national, but he was reported to be an ethnic Chinese with Hong Kong roots working for a textile company in Indonesia. He is suspected of developing Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome after traveling to Hong Kong and Singapore, and was allowed to leave hospital to return to his Indonesian residence after recovering. ``He had recovered and he had to be monitored for 10 days,'' Indonesian health ministry official Sjafii Ahmad told Reuters. ``But yesterday he left for Hong Kong without our knowledge.'' He added, however, that Indonesian authorities had been able to learn of the airline he was on and advise it and passengers of the situation. They had also informed Hong Kong authorities. In Hong Kong, Director of Health Margaret Chan told a news conference Hong Kong officials had located the man and would examine him. Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous country, has no confirmed cases of SARS but several suspected cases have been reported. KJC

To: EL KABONG!!! who wrote (31928)	4/20/2003 3:08:39 AM
From: EL KABONG!!!	Respond to of 74559

online.wsj.com Hong Kong's SARS Toll Adds a Record 12 Deaths Associated Press HONG KONG -- A record 12 patients died in a single day in Hong Kong from a deadly respiratory virus, raising the death toll to 81, health officials said Saturday. Meanwhile, Singapore's leader warned that the outbreak could become the worst economic crisis his city-state has ever faced. No cure for SARS has been found, though health officials say most sufferers recover with timely hospital care. Symptoms of the disease include fever, shortness of breath, coughing, chills and body aches. The latest fatalities included seven patients who had simultaneously had other diseases or chronic illnesses, they said. Another 31 patients were stricken with severe acute respiratory syndrome, bringing to 1,358 the number of people hospitalized with the disease since it was first reported in Hong Kong last month. More than 40 other Hong Kong patients were discharged from hospitals Saturday after recovering. A Hong Kong government report has found the biggest local outbreak of SARS was spread in part by infected sewage that filtered through drains in one apartment building. Chief Executive Tung Chee Hwa is calling for a massive cleansing in the territory of 6.8 million people. A campaign that was started Saturday is targeting "environmental blackspots" such as rear alleys and old buildings that are cleaned less regularly than the gleaming bank towers and upper-end residential complexes Hong Kong is famous for. Singapore's prime minister, Goh Chok Tong, said Saturday the SARS outbreak could become the worst economic crisis the city-state has ever faced. He also announced tough new measures to try to contain SARS, including prison sentences for people who defy quarantine orders. "SARS will knock you backward, it may even kill you, but I can tell you SARS can kill the economy and all of us will be killed by the collapsing economy," he said. India reported its second case of the disease Saturday, a New Zealander who arrived Wednesday night from Bangkok, Thailand. World-wide, the disease has killed at least 180 people and infected more than 3,000, including about 1,300 in mainland China. About three dozen Americans have probable cases of SARS using the definition set by the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday. Of the 35 probable cases, 33 had traveled to mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore or Hanoi. As SARS continues its march, leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations plan to meet April 29 in Bangkok to discuss on how to cope with the disease's spread. Southeast Asian nations are expected to suffer sharp economic effects from the outbreak, particularly from an Asia-wide slowdown in tourism. Six of the 10 ASEAN countries -- Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam -- have reported cases of SARS. Indeed, on Saturday New Delhi-based Air India said it is suspending its flights to Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia starting Monday, because the pilots union fears the spreading SARS virus. Flights from New Delhi and the southern city of Hyderabad -- which continue to Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta after stops in Singapore -- will halt on Monday, the Press Trust of India news agency quoted an Air India official as saying. The Indian Pilots Guild had decided its members wouldn't fly to Singapore, where 16 people out of 172 cases have died of the pneumonia-like illness, and strict quarantine procedures have been put into place. Copyright (c) 2003 Associated Press Updated April 19, 2003 2:35 p.m. KJC