FreeRepublic , LLC
PO BOX 9771
FRESNO, CA 93794
It is in the breaking news sidebar!
Posted on 04/13/2003 1:24:46 PM PDT by Lessismore
Hong Kong — Eight more SARS deaths were reported in Hong Kong and Singapore on Sunday as the epidemic continued to deliver a crippling blow to Asia's tourism industry.
Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific Airways was among Asian companies feeling the pinch, with an executive warning in a memo that the airline may have to ground its entire passenger fleet because of growing fears of severe acute respiratory syndrome.
A spokeswoman insisted Sunday there were no plans to cease operations, but the memo — reported Sunday in Hong Kong newspapers — underscored the financial damage the virus has wrought on the region.
The disease has infected about 3,000 people globally and killed at least 133, mostly in Asia.
A laboratory in Canada — the hardest-hit country outside Asia — announced on the weekend it had completed the genetic sequencing of the coronavirus believed to cause the disease.
The information from the Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre in British Columbia could help scientists determine if the coronavirus — part of a family that includes forms of the common cold — is the source of SARS.
A spokesman for the World Health Organization called the achievement "an extraordinary step."
"I knew that it could happen quickly," Dick Thompson said in an interview from Geneva.
"And frankly, I thought that the CDC (U.S. Centers for Disease Control) would get it done first," he said.
The importance of the endeavour was driven home Saturday by the announcement that three more Canadians, all elderly, had died from SARS, bringing the total to 13. All of the deaths have been in the Toronto area.
As of Saturday, Ontario had recorded 223 of the 274 probable and suspect cases of SARS in Canada.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong said the territory's chief executive, Tung Chee-hwa, met with Chinese President Hu Jintao in the border city of Shenzhen on Saturday to brief him about Hong Kong's problems with SARS.
Mr. Tung acknowledged that the disease is not under control, although he told Mr. Hu that experts have a basic understanding of how it can be transmitted and treated, a Hong Kong government statement said Sunday.
Still, four of the five new deaths reported in Hong Kong on Sunday — raising the territory's death toll to 40 — were relatively young, fit patients previously seen as having a good chance of recovering with a combination of anti-viral drugs and steroids.
The patients, aged 40, 41, 45 and 52, "just kept deteriorating" despite being placed under intensive care, said Dr. Liu Shao-haei, a Hospital Authority official.
Chinese health officials — criticized for their initial handling of the disease — took reporters on a tour of Beijing hospitals Sunday aimed at reassuring them that China's capital is prepared to deal with a further outbreak.
Journalists bundled into head-to-ankle anti-infection jumpsuits, face masks and shoe covers for a trip to the isolation ward at Beijing's Ditan Hospital, where seven SARS cases are being treated. On the other side of the city, doctors at Peking Union Medical College Hospital showed off a gleaming new ward set aside for SARS patients should any arrive.
The visits, however, failed to clear up questions over whether Beijing has many more cases than the 22 that have been reported by the government. Doctors said they have other likely SARS cases under observation, but gave no numbers.
The World Health Organization said in a statement Saturday that it had added Beijing to its list of SARS-affected areas. Other affected areas include Hong Kong, Guangdong and Shanxi provinces in China; Taiwan, Toronto, Singapore, and Hanoi.
The WHO warned against travel to Hong Kong and Guangdong province back on April 2, leading to a sharp decline in traffic into the territory.
Hong Kong's Airport Authority said Sunday that 30 per cent of flights have been cancelled since the warning was issued. It also said the number of passengers at Chek Lap Kok has been declining almost daily, from about 54,300 on April 1 to 31,700 on Thursday. This compares with a daily average of 98,600 for the same period last year.
Cathay Pacific's traffic has plunged from about 30,000 passengers a day to below 10,000 since the SARS outbreak, costing the airline more than $4.3-million (Canadian) in losses each day, newspapers reported.
The South China Morning Post quoted director of flight operations Nick Rhodes as writing in a memo: "We forecast 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."
While health authorities were trying to calm fears about the outbreak, they were also imposing stricter measures to guard against the spread of the disease.
Hong Kong health officials have released a list of 169 buildings where recent SARS victims have either lived or worked.
Singapore authorities slapped their first electronic wrist tag on a person who flouted a home quarantine order, while police said they were still hunting for a fugitive Chinese woman with SARS symptoms. The wrist tag allows the person's movements to be monitored.
There are 608 people under home quarantine in the city-state of about four million, officials said Sunday.
Despite the precautions, three more people died in Singapore, taking the death toll to 12, while four new cases were reported, they said.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.