HONG KONG (AP) - Health officials said Monday that 88 more people from one apartment complex have fallen ill with a mystery flu-like disease, bringing the total number of cases there to 213 and stirring fears that it will keep spreading.
Hong Kong's health secretary, Dr. Yeoh Eng-kiong, announced the big rise in severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, cases in a news conference just hours after authorities imposed a tight quarantine on one block of the Amoy Gardens complex.
Yeoh said 107 of the sick people were from Block E of the Amoy Gardens, and most of those cases were from the same two apartment units on several floors of the building, raising the possibility that the disease was spreading vertically.
Asked whether SARS was being spread through the air, Yeoh said that couldn't be ruled out.
Officials had said previously the illness, which has killed 13 people in Hong Kong and 59 worldwide, seemed to spread through close contact and Yeoh said experts still believe the sickness is being transmitted mostly through droplets, when victims sneeze or cough and nearby people are infected.
"No one can rule out this possibility of airborne transmission, because the virus can change so quickly these days,'' Yeoh said.
Hong Kong's health director, Dr. Margaret Chan, said early Monday that no one can leave or enter Block E of the Amoy Gardens without official permission until midnight on April 9.
Anybody violating the order could be fined or jailed.
The outbreak at Amoy Gardens has heightened fears in Hong Kong, where thousands of people are wearing surgical masks and much activity has ground to a halt.
Yeoh said officials believe the virus was brought to Amoy Gardens by a man infected at the Prince of Wales Hospital, where many of Hong Kong's victims became ill.
The infected person paid four recent visits to his brother, who was staying in Block E, Yeoh said.
The disease was spread to Prince of Wales Hospital by a victim who caught it while visiting the ninth floor of Hong Kong's Metropole Hotel last month.
An infected mainland Chinese medical professor was staying in the hotel and passed the disease to other people who then spread it in Hong Kong and carried it to Vietnam, Singapore and Canada.
Hong Kong has now reported more than 600 cases of SARS, although officials also noted that 60 patients here have recovered and been discharged.
Worldwide, SARS has infected more than 1,600 people.
Yeoh appeared emotional, with reddened eyes and nose, and initially had trouble speaking as he made a statement on the isolation of Block E.
"It's a very exceptional circumstance,'' Yeoh said. "We haven't done it before and we hope we won't do it again.''
A government statement said Hong Kong had "no choice but resort to this exceptional measure and we sincerely ask for residents' forbearance, understanding and support in joining the community's fight against this disease.''
Janet Wong, acting director of Home Affairs, said officials had gotten word of the quarantine to 241 residents from 108 apartment units in Block E.
They had not been able to immediately reach residents from 156 units, but many people have fled Amoy Gardens in fear, stirring worries that if any are infected they could spread the disease further in the community.
Hong Kong is the second-hardest hit place after mainland China, which has reported some 800 cases and 34 deaths.
The World Health Organization has expressed concern over the increasing spread of the disease in Hong Kong, where new SARS cases have picked up pace in the past few days. - AP