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China admits Sars situation 'grave'
14/04/2003 08:15 - (SA)
Beijing - China admitted on Monday the Sars situation in the country remained "grave" as the outbreak of atypical pneumonia kept exacting a toll on Asian lives and economies.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao painted the situation in the world's most populous nation in dark colours, saying fighting the virus was now a top priority, according to the Xinhua news agency.
"Much progress has been made in combating the disease so far, with the epidemic brought under control in some areas, but the overall situation remains grave," Wen was quoted as telling a national conference.
His remarks were in stark contract to previous statements by top officials that Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars) was under control and came as China updated its number of cases to 1 344, including 60 dead.
Globally, the death toll stands at 132 after Hong Kong reported five new deaths on Sunday, taking the number of deaths from the disease in the former British colony to 41.
Canada, which reported three new deaths Saturday, now has a total of 13 fatalities. Another in Vietnam reported on Saturday brought its death toll to five, with two fatalities recorded in Thailand and one in Malaysia.
More than 3 200 Sars cases have been acknowledged worldwide with another eight in China's southern Guangdong province reported on Monday.
The mayor of Beijing admitted meanwhile that the city's first case emerged six weeks ago.
"The first Sars patient treated in a hospital in Beijing on March 1 has recovered," Mayor Meng Xuenong said, according to the China Daily.
The revelation appeared to confirm claims by a doctor from the city's No 301 Military Hospital that authorities were alerted to the existence of Sars in Beijing much earlier than they have acknowledged.
They allegedly covered it up because it clashed with the government's annual legislature, the National People's Congress, which opened on March 5, according to the doctor.
On Friday, the World Health Organisation (WHO) added Beijing to its list of areas affected by Sars following indications that "chains of local transmission are occurring".
This put the city of 13 million on an exclusive list that also includes two Chinese provinces, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Hanoi and Toronto.
In a belated attempt to allow the outside world to understand conditions in the country where Sars probably originated, China has greenlighted more WHO inspection teams.
Five WHO experts were looking into Beijing's defences against the disease on Monday, and Shanghai, China's largest city, had also invited a WHO team to visit.
The programme of the Beijing team was kept under wraps by the WHO, which also did not comment on the level of cooperation received from Chinese authorities.
China accounts for about half the global Sars fatalities, and could wind up shouldering a large part of the economic loss as well, as cancelations of high-profile events multiply.
British advertising company Saatchi and Saatchi decided to postpone an exhibition show scheduled at the Great Hall of the People, in the heart of Beijing, in late April.
But the economic impact of the deadly virus is regionwide, and could tip Singapore and Hong Kong closer to a recession this year, economists said.
"Clearly, the most vulnerable economies are Hong Kong and Singapore," said David Cohen, an economist at MMS International.
"Both are so dependent on tourism and business travellers as well. If they are unable to contain Sars, it could clearly tip both economies into a recession," he said.
While analysts were busy with the forward-looking task of predicting economic consequences, others engaged in the backward-looking effort of finding out who contracted Sars when and where.
Thailand's public health ministry said it would investigate claims that a Kazakh man suspected of being infected with Sars may have contracted the virus while in the kingdom.
This followed statements by officials from the Central Asian country that a man might have contracted the illness during a business trip to Thailand from which he returned on March 17. - Sapa-AFP
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