World gears up for 'killer flu'

2003-03-18 11:08

Hong Kong - Global health officials were battling on Tuesday to contain an outbreak of a mysterious respiratory disease, which has sparked a worldwide medical alert, and pin down the cause of the illness.

As airlines stepped up surveillance of passengers in a bid to curb the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars), the Geneva-based World Health Organisation put laboratories in 10 countries on the case.

At least four deaths - two in Canada, one in Hong Kong and one in Vietnam - have been attributed to the disease, which has been described as an atypical pneumonia or influenza-like illness.

Besides the four confirmed deaths, health officials also strongly suspect Sars was behind five deaths last month in China's southern Guangdong province, where the disease may have originated.

A total of 305 people were infected in Guangdong and there have been about 200 confirmed or suspected cases of Sars in the latest outbreak, according to WHO figures and local sources.

Cases or suspected cases have been reported in nearly a dozen countries with Hong Kong (95), Vietnam (51) and Singapore (21) among the worst affected.

'The world's best labs working together'

No cases have been reported in the United States, but the Centres for Disease Control (CDC) have heightened surveillance, preparing health-alert cards to be given at airports to travellers returning from southeast Asia.

Eight CDC scientists have been deployed to help the WHO "to understand the cause of this illness and how to prevent its spread", said director Julie Gerberding.

They will help 11 laboratories in 10 countries mobilised by the WHO in a global detective effort aimed at identifying the cause of the disease, which may be a previously unknown virus or a new strain of influenza.

"These are the world's best laboratories working together to see if they can find a diagnosis for this disease," said David Heymann, WHO's executive director for communicable diseases.

In Singapore, health minister Lim Hng Kiang said on Tuesday the outbreak in the city-state was under control, although he appealed to Singaporeans not to visit Hong Kong, Hanoi or Guangdong province for the moment.

"Lately, the situation is under control," he said. "There is no reason to panic because we have contained the situation."

Travellers had been in Hong Kong, China

In Australia, officials said on Tuesday a 47-year-old woman and a 44-year-old man in the eastern state of Victoria and a woman in her 50s in the western city of Perth were being treated in hospital isolation wards for suspected Sars.

All three had recently been in Hong Kong or mainland China.

Medical officials in Austria and Britain reported a single case each, both among travellers recently returned from China or Hong Kong.

Symptoms of the disease include high fever and respiratory problems such as shortness of breath and coughing.

The WHO has emphasised that the disease is spread "only through close contact with a case" and noted that health workers and close relatives have been among the worst-affected in Hong Kong and Vietnam.

In Hong Kong, health authorities set up a telephone hotline to provide advice about the disease to a worried public and sought to downplay fears it had spread to the general community beyond hospital isolation wards.

Airlines and airports, meanwhile, have begun to screen passengers or crew with symptoms of Sars in a bid to prevent the disease from spreading.

The WHO warned on Monday the "speed of international travel creates a risk of rapid spread (of the disease) to additional areas", but that there was "no current justification for any restriction in travel or trade".

- AFX