Beijing still reluctant to divulge Sars toll

OFFICIALS in Hong Kong claim to be gaining the upper hand in the fight against Sars, but China is still said to be greatly under-reporting cases.

The Chinese Government has now admitted to 1,330 cases in Guangdong province, where the disease first developed in November, but it claims to have only three cases in neighbouring Fujian and officials say that there are only six cases in Hunan.

World Health Organisation officials believe privately that China is still hugely under-reporting cases. Despite promises of full co-operation, they fear that many more cases in rural areas are still not being reported.

There was better news in Hong Kong, where children returned to school yesterday as the Government said that it was confident of driving down the infection figures and beating the economic malaise caused by the virus.

Tung Chee-hwa, the Chief Executive, said that the Government was "slowly but surely getting the figures stabilised", adding that he was growing increasingly hopeful of containing Sars. Mr Tung and his ministers are expected to approve a relief package today that will include cuts in a range of fees and charges, business rents and possibly a short-term loan fund to stimulate the economy.

The virus has infected more than 1,400 people in the city and killed 94. However, the number of new infections per day appears to be slowing. Yesterday 22 new cases were reported, the lowest this month, and the death rate fell by six on Monday, a reduction of about 30 per cent from the peak a few days ago.

Experts said that the figures were encouraging but added that Hong Kong needed to see a sustained improvement. Malik Peiris, a microbiologist at the University of Hong Kong, said: "You really have to look at trends. The daily figure or two days or three days doesn't really mean anything. What you need to look at is maybe on a week, two-week basis, is there a consistent trend downward. Then one can feel more confident."

The news of falling casualty numbers will be encouraging to other cities in Asia tackling Sars. Many of their patients were originally infected in Hong Kong and they may now copy the city's counter-measures.

Infection figures in China, where the outbreak began, continued to rise yesterday. Authorities reported 157 new cases, bringing a cumulative total of 2,158. However, the British Government said that it had not changed its travel advice, which recommended only not travelling to Guangdong province, where the disease first started.

Hong Kong has installed thermal imaging equipment to screen all visitors. Anyone showing a temperature above 38C will be tested for Sars. The city is quarantining anyone in the household of recent Sars victims, while stepping up efforts to find potential contacts. A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said there were no plans to introduce the cameras at UK ports of entry.

"All our screening procedures are taking place in the countries of origin. We have no plans to introduce such tests here," she said. One of the most effective measures to contain the virus is said to be the closure of many schools. Around 200,000 secondary students in Hong Kong are returning to class after a three-week closure.

* The ten member countries of the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean), alarmed by the spread of Sars and its impact on the region's economies, will hold an emergency meeting in Bangkok on April 29 to find ways to save lives and businesses.

I doubt whether they even know or care how many ordinary Chinese have died. If they can't pay, they don't get into the hospital. That's the new Communism for you. For all we know, hundreds of thousands might have died by this time, and we'd never hear about it.

Even if every health officials in China comes squeaky clean and report all known SARS cases honestly as it is, the final figure still doesn’t reflect any truth of the situation.

There are tens of thousands of small counties and villages in rural China that have no hospitals, just a dismal clinic. People can catch the decease -- go to the village’s barefoot doctor -- get some herbal medicine -- go home and get his family and neighbors infected -- struggle to stay alive -- failed and go to see Carl Marx -- buried and forgotten. This entire process, which keeps repeating itself and spread like wild fire, is happening outside the government’s existing medical system. No control, no statistics.

Due to the inherent deficiency of China’s medical system and infrastructure, which is too primitive to cope with this kind of epidermic, my conclusion is: WE WILL NEVER KNOW THE TRUTH.

I have been keeping track of the figures but lately, I have given up. Under the existing system, the numbers are meaningless. Since China is the biggest contributor to the world total number of cases, this deficiency is also rendering the world figures meaningless.

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