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FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794
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FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794
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April 08 2003 at 08:06AM
By Tan Ee Lyn
IOL
Hong Kong - The deadly virus that triggers Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) has spread to another densely populated part of Hong Kong, and a top health official warned on Tuesday that cockroaches might be carrying the respiratory disease from apartment to apartment.
Residents from at least 14 housing estates in the suburban town of Tuen Mun had been infected, a district lawmaker said, raising fears that a disease which has killed 23 people in the territory is far from contained.
Deputy Director of Health Leung Pak-yin told a radio programme that cockroaches might have carried infected waste from sewerage pipes into apartments in another huge housing complex - Amoy Gardens - where more than a quarter of the city's 883 cases have occurred.
Health workers have confirmed that an infected man with kidney problems visited a relative in one Amoy Gardens block before the virus swept through the building like wildfire.
"The drainage may be the reason, it is possible that the cockroaches carried the virus into the homes," Leung said.
Doctors believe the virus is spread through droplets by sneezing and coughing or by direct contact. If it can be carried by cockroaches it would be even harder to contain.
Hong Kong, a territory of nearly seven million people, has the second highest number of infections in the world outside of mainland China, where it first emerged.
The infections in Tuen Mun were spread over a number of housing estates, district councillor Chan Wan-sang told Reuters. Half a million people live in Tuen Mun.
SARS symptoms include high fever and chills
"They are all from 14 different estates, but we believe the total number of people infected may be more than 14," he said.
Some of those infected in Tuen Mun were hospital staff and at least one caught it during a recent holiday to Beijing, he said.
About half of the 278 people infected in the Amoy Gardens estate come from one wing of a single block. Residents from that block have been evacuated and quarantined in isolation camps.
A government spokesperson said they would be allowed to return home from Thursday if they passed medical checks and government workers had disinfected drainage pipes in the estate.
The virus has been carried around the globe by travellers. It has killed more than 100 people and infected over 2 600 in 20 countries.
The epidemic is dealing a severe blow to the Hong Kong economy, which was just starting to show signs of recovery after two harsh downturns in the last five years.
Many travellers have cancelled trips to the city and residents are steering clear of usually crowded places like shopping malls and restaurants.
Continental Airlines was the latest to join a growing number of carriers cutting services. It suspended nonstop flights between New York and Hong Kong because of plunging demand.
SARS symptoms include high fever, chills and breathing difficulties.
The disease has a mortality rate of about four percent, far lower than influenza. But many Hong Kong patients quickly develop severe pneumonia which can require weeks in hospital.
On another thread there was discussion that it is a combo of infections that cause it to be deadly. Maybe the carriers don't have the other infection.
LAURA MECKLER, Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, April 8, 2003
(04-08) 10:25 PDT WASHINGTON (AP) --
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is receiving a record number of phone calls from members of the public concerning severe acute respiratory syndrome, the new contagious disease that has spread from Asia to the United States and elsewhere.
Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told a Senate panel Tuesday the volume of daily calls sometimes exceeds 1,500. That's more than the CDC received even at the peak of the fall 2001 anthrax attacks, she said.
As of Monday, there were 148 suspected cases of SARS in the United States and more than 2,600 worldwide.
Testifying before the Senate appropriations health subcommittee, Gerberding said officials are working aggressively with airlines to determine appropriate procedures if a suspected SARS patient is on board a flight, including what protections are needed for workers on the plane and how the plane might be decontaminated.
She also said:
* The CDC is forming a communications team to make sure the agency is doing a good job communicating with the Asian community on SARS. Still, she said, they want to be sensitive to bias(sic), because this is not a disease of Asians but a disease of people who have been in the part of the world where SARS is spreading.
* CDC has three potentially useful tests to diagnose the virus, which CDC suspects is a new form of the coronavirus, which causes the common cold.
She said the U.S. cases, on average, may be less serious than those in other parts of the world because the CDC is using a very broad case definition in hopes of capturing all real cases. Someone doesn't have to have severe pneumonia to be listed as suspect SARS here, she said.
* While the health system in the United States "has risen to the occasion," other nations may not be responding as well to SARS. "It's going to be very difficult to contain it" as it spreads across the globe, she said.