Sars: 600 isolated in Beijing

2004-04-27 16:36

Beijing - More than 600 people have been isolated in Beijing as the city moves to prevent a Sars outbreak from spreading ahead of the busy Labour Day holidays, state media and medical workers said on Tuesday.

"The number of people who have been isolated has risen to more than 600 because of the Sars epidemic," Wu Jiang, director of the infectious disease control department of Beijing Centre of Disease Control told the Beijing News.

The CDC confirmed the figure, adding that 24 of those under observation were staff from the national centre of disease control.

At least 133 people are also in isolation in Anhui province, reports said.

"The people are either isolated in the same place or at home," said Wu, who expressed confidence that the Chinese capital would not be crippled by Sars as it was last year.

"At the moment the situation is under control. There is little possibility of the Sars epidemic affecting Beijing society," he said.

While the World Health Organisation has shown concern about bio-safety practices at the laboratory where the outbreak occurred, it backed Wu's assessment, saying the Chinese government appeared to be following all the right procedures.

"We still don't see this as a public health threat," WHO spokesperson in Beijing Bob Dietz said.

"We're pretty sure we've identified the source, the channels of transmission have been broken and we can trace it back to one source."

Meanwhile, two WHO experts arrived in Beijing on Tuesday to investigate bio-safety standards at a top Chinese laboratory believed to be the source of the outbreak.

Chinese authorities last week said a researcher at the Beijing-based Institute of Virology contracted Sars and infected a nurse who took care of her at a Beijing hospital.

The researcher's mother has since died, while the nurse's relatives and contacts have also gone down with symptoms of the disease.

So far there are six suspected and two confirmed cases in Beijing and Anhui, although no new cases have been reported for two days.

In response to the scare, the Institute of Virology has been closed down and emergency inspection teams are being rushed around the country to check if health guidelines are being followed.

Dietz said four WHO teams were due to arrive in China over the next few days to look at bio-safety in laboratories, help in epidemiological investigations and to make sure hospitals have proper Sars precautions in place.

- AFP