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Airlines on alert for 'killer flu'
17/03/2003 10:14 - (SA)
Singapore - International airlines joined health authorities on Monday in efforts to check the spread of a highly contagious form of pneumonia feared to have caused nine deaths and more then 450 infections worldwide so far.
The disease named by the World Health Organisation as severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) has left four people dead in Asia and Canada and infected more than 150 others, mostly medical workers, in the past week.
Experts are trying to establish whether these cases are related to an outbreak last month near Hong Kong in southern China's Guangdong province which left five people dead out of 305 cases reported.
The disease, described as "atypical pneumonia" because it does not show the classic signs, is apparently being spread by air travellers from Asia, prompting the WHO to warn of a "worldwide health threat".
The Geneva-based agency issued an emergency travel advisory at the weekend urging airlines to watch out for passengers or crew with a fever higher than 38°C, cough, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing.
They were told to watch out particularly for people who had had close contact with Sars victims, or travelled recently to affected areas.
Medical assessment for passengers
Hong Kong's flag-carrier Cathay Pacific said in a press statement it had initiated "precautionary health measures" in response to the outbreak.
Its principal medical officer, Dr John Merritt, reminded all Cathay Pacific port managers to refrain from checking in any passenger who showed symptoms of the illness, and to refer sick passengers for medical assessment.
"It is company policy not to allow any passenger to board an aircraft who is known to be suffering from an actively infectious disease," the airline said.
Merritt said air filters in planes "remove many of the droplets and particles that are responsible for spreading infection", but added that "it is important for passengers who appear to be ill to be denied boarding and referred for medical assessment".
Concern was equally grave on the ground where victims and their relatives waited for progress. Doctors, including WHO specialists, have been baffled by the disease, and it remains unclear if it is caused by a virus or bacteria.
Anxious relatives waited on Monday outside Singapore's Communicable Disease Centre (CDC), where victims have been isolated for treatment and observation.
"It is very alarming to me and my family," said the husband of a Filipina nurse confined at the CDC.
The husband, himself a health-care worker, said his wife was admitted on Sunday night after she and a colleague showed symptoms. The two victims had looked after the first batch of Sars cases in Singapore.
He said his wife's colleague was already on oxygen and intravenous support, but a spokesperson for the ministry of health said all Sars patients were in "stable condition" so far.
20 cases in Singapore
Since last Thursday, when an American businessman who had fallen ill in Hanoi died in Hong Kong, two deaths have been reported in Canada and a nurse has died in Hanoi.
Both victims in Canada were family members who had recently visited Hong Kong.
At least 49 medical staff are under observation in six different Hong Kong hospitals with 42 of them showing symptoms of pneumonia. One patient is in critical condition.
A total of 48 cases have been diagnosed in the Vietnamese capital, where a nurse at the Hanoi French Hospital died on Saturday from the illness.
Twenty cases have been reported in Singapore, and eight in Canada.
Philippines health authorities on Monday cleared a hospital patient earlier suspected of having contracted Sars.
Japan has sent a team of two doctors and an international aid worker to Vietnam to help investigate the cause of the outbreak.
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