The Herald Sun By MANDI ZONNEVELDT, health reporter 02apr03

FLIGHTS coming into Australia will be forced to get quarantine clearance in a bid to prevent the deadly SARS virus spreading here.

From today, pilots will have to declare whether they are carrying passengers with flu-like symptoms before they land.

Commonwealth Chief Medical Officer Professor Richard Smallwood announced the move as Australia confirmed its first suspected case of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome.

The suspected victim recovered before the World Health Organisation issued its alert last month.

The man, a British tourist in his 60s, was treated at a Sydney hospital and stayed in Australia for 10 days but did not spread the disease.

Officials made the diagnosis retrospectively and notified WHO.

Professor Smallwood said Australians need not be alarmed.

"Be aware that SARS is not in Australia yet," Professor Smallwood said.

"That one case is all we've seen but it hasn't spread in Australia," he said. "There is no risk to anyone in Australia as a result of (the sick man) being in the country."

Professor Smallwood said that people who arrived in Australia with SARS symptoms would not be turned away.

He said they would receive medical treatment with an appropriate level of infection control to stop the disease spreading.

The world-wide death toll from SARS is now 62. More than than 1700 people have been infected.

Three Australians with SARS symptoms, two in Sydney and one in Canberra, were being investigated by health officials.

The WHO revealed yesterday that the virus may have originated in farm animals in southern China.

Hitoshi Oshitani, a WHO expert in communicable diseases, said many emerging diseases came from viruses crossing species barriers.

The spread of SARS across the globe has caused panic.

Qantas, Singapore Airlines and Cathay Pacific will make masks available to passengers and crew on flights out of Asia.

Melbourne pharmacies have been struggling to keep up with the demand for the masks.

Health officials said yesterday there was no evidence the masks prevented disease spread.

Tooronga Village pharmacist Andrew Robinson expects a delivery of masks tomorrow.

"We normally do one or two a month," he said.

He sold out a week ago.

"We keep some, but we've had so many inquiries. It's really freaking people out," he said.

Australians have been warned to reconsider travel to Hong Kong, China, Singapore and Vietnam, with hundreds cancelling trips.

Other countries, including the US and Canada, have warned their citizens not to travel to those countries.

The disease has also affected Australian staff and businesses in Asia.

Australian companies with Asian branches, particularly those in Singapore and Hong Kong, have suspended non-essential travel and asked staff to work from home in a bid to stem potential outbreaks.

By Wei Gu REUTERS 5:00 a.m., April 1, 2003

NEW YORK – For travel agencies serving Chinatowns across the United States, an Asian-centered outbreak of a deadly illness could not have come at a worse time, with the war in Iraq already making travelers think twice about booking overseas flights.

The illness, known as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, has killed about 60 people worldwide, many of them in Asia, and infected more than 1,600 since emerging in southern China in November. News of the disease's impact has led to a dramatic drop in reservations from Asians flying from the United States to China, Hong Kong and other regional destinations, travel agencies say.

Since reports about the sickness began circulating about two weeks ago, New York City-based Paradise Vacations has lost 80 percent of its business and is now running at an average of just 100 air tickets a month, down from 500 per month a year ago, said its general manager David Lo. The travel agency went from having 100 customers traveling to China each month to just 10.

While some of the decline may have been due to concerns about flying while the war rages in Iraq, Lo says he is certain the biggest culprit is the mystery respiratory illness.

"The war won't cost your life because the bombs are not being dropped in China, but the virus will kill you," he said.

Chinese-language papers published in Chinatowns across the country have been carrying often alarmist headlines about the illness, with war coverage often taking a backseat.

The SARS outbreak has also led to concerns among the broader American community about booking trips to China. Kevin Starke, who works in a brokerage research department, said he may cancel his July trip to Hong Kong unless the situation improves.

"Hong Kong is very crowded. If there is an airborne virus spreading in a place like that, you will have a very good chance of getting it," he said.

"I just don't think I will risk one, dying, and two, getting very sick, having to spend a month in a hospital," Starke said. "I may (have to) be quarantined, have permanent lung damage, or spread that to the people that I return home to."

Hong Kong remains the most severely affected area outside of mainland China, with more than 530 cases, according to the World Health Organization figures – many of whom are in intensive care – and there have been some 15 deaths.

WORLDWIDE ALARMS

The travel agencies in New York's Chinese communities were already suffering from the impact of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the economic downturn and the uncertainties surrounding the war. Manhattan's Chinatown is only about a mile from the site of the destroyed World Trade Center.

The spreading disease has dealt another blow to the airline industry. Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd said on Monday it had cut 47 flights a week to eight destinations in Asia starting in mid-April due to weak demand. UAL Corp. and Northwest Airlines Corp., which have both recently reduced international schedules, said it was hard to differentiate between the impact of the illness and the war.

The outbreak of the lethal disease quickly set off worldwide alarms. The World Health Organization has recommended screening of air passengers departing from affected areas. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises Americans to postpone nonessential travel to Hong Kong, China, Singapore and the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi.

Chinese travel businesses that mushroomed in recent years as the Chinese economy took off and with an influx of new immigrants are now suffering. Visitors from China have been postponing plans to come to the United States because of the disease and the war, which has made it harder to get U.S. visas.

Oceania Tours in Chicago said air ticket bookings were down by a third from the same time last year. In San Francisco's Chinatown, Van Vic Vacations said 15 percent of its customers have canceled trips and new bookings have dwindled.

"Bad things don't come alone, now the disease has just added ice to the snow that we were experiencing," Van Vic manager Victor Chen said.

For small tourist agencies, the disease may be a death knell. L&L N.Y. Inc., a travel agency in Manhattan's Chinatown, said even the most popular $55 two-day, New York-to-Washington package has become a hard sell. To boost traffic, several agencies are offering "buy two and get one free" trips, but Mark Qian, general manager of L&L, says he does not think that will help.

"People just don't have travel on their minds, and we cannot offer free trips," Qian said. "The SARS will make it hard for small players to survive."

First created : 01 April 2003 1951 hrs (SST) 1151 hrs (GMT) Last modified : 01 April 2003 1951 hrs (SST) 1151 hrs (GMT) Channel News Asis

The World Health Organisation is now studying whether livestock in southern China may be the source of SARS, a deadly flu-like virus.

It has killed 63 people worldwide and infected almost 1,800.

The WHO regional office in Manila says the health body is awaiting authorisation from China to visit Guangdong province.

That was where the mystery disease first broke out in November.

It has since spread to other parts of the world, mainly Asia, through air travel.

But scientists have ruled-out a link between the disease, and the bird flu.

What experts have not ruled out is whether SARS is Airborne.

A top US health official says large outbreaks such as that in Hong Kong have raised this possibility.

This would make it far more contagious than previously thought.

Scientists are also puzzled, as to why two families of viruses have been found, in SARS patients.

Health officials previously believed SARS was transmitted through close contact with "droplets" from a sneezing or coughing patient.

The US-based Centres for Disease Control says health experts still do not have enough information on the mystery disease.

It also believes the best way now to prevent SARS is to take precautions similar to that during ordinary flu season.

<a href=iol.co.za>IOL April 01 2003 at 06:19PM

South Africa's National Institute for Communicable Diseases put the country on the alert on Tuesday for signs of the deadly pneumonia virus that has already killed more than 60 people worldwide.

The institute said that it had sent step-by-step instructions to the health department and private and state medical laboratories detailing what to do should doctors suspect Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in a patient.

"Doctors should be on the lookout for high temperatures, they should look for respiratory illness such as coughing or shortness of breath, but most importantly they should get the patient's travel and contact history," the institute's director, Professor Barry Schoub, explained.

According to the guidelines, patients suspected of having SARS must be isolated and "barrier-nursed" with mask, gown and glove precautions.

'There is an alert for the disease'Specimens such as clotted blood and nasopharyngeal swabs should be sent to the institute for analysis.

Schoub said there had been no confirmed deaths of SARS in the country.

He said the first step would be to develop a good diagnostic test for the disease, which at the moment was being subjected to the more expensive molecular testing.

"There is an alert for the disease, but it is not major. HIV/Aids is a much bigger problem in South Africa," said Schoub.

The epicentre of the disease is in Asia where the majority of the deaths have occurred. Scientists fear the disease may be spread by close human contact such as that experienced inside passenger planes.

Meanwhile, doctors at the Nelspruit Medi-Clinic said on Tuesday that a man who was admitted to the hospital on Monday night with some of the symptoms of SARS - and who had recently travelled to Mozambique and Hong Kong - did not appear to be suffering from the disease.

"The patient will be treated for malaria. The patient is stable and doing well, and will be removed from isolation to another ward," the hospital said in a statement.

The man was transported from Maputo by ambulance to the clinic on Monday night.

In parliament on Tuesday, the African Christian Democratic Party questioned South Africa's readiness to respond to a global outbreak of SARS.

"The question arises as to whether the South African government is taking sufficient preventative steps to prevent the outbreak of SARS in South Africa," said MP Steve Swart. - Sapa

WASHINGTON, April 1, 2003 (CBS/AP)

"Men may not even recognize that depression is the problem or that much can be done to help them." Dr. Thomas Insel

(CBS) In a society that emphasizes men being rugged and strong, it's tough for a guy to admit to being depressed, but the National Institute of Mental Health wants that to change.

The agency, one of the National Institutes of Health, launched a campaign Tuesday to raise awareness that men, too, suffer from depression and that they need to seek help.

About 6 million men have clinical depression, but research shows they are less likely to seek treatment than do women. One result is that men are suicide victims about four times more often than women.

"For generations men have been told that they have to act tough," U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona said in a statement. "Today we're saying to men, it's OK to talk to someone about what you're thinking, or how you're feeling, or if you're hurting."

The new public health campaign, said Carmona, is "attacking the stigma that tough guys can't seek help. They can and they should."

Called "Real Men, Real Depression," the campaign will include a series of television, print and radio public service announcements featuring people telling their personal stories about how they confronted their own depression. The campaign will not use actors, but ordinary people who had problems, the agency said.

Studies show that depression affects women about twice as often as men, but the two genders respond differently to the serious health problem. Women tend to talk about the symptoms and seek treatment, while men do not, the NIMH said.

Men tend not to recognize that some health symptoms may be caused by depression. Signs of depression include irritability, poor sleep, loss of interest in work or hobbies, and withdrawal. Depression is often a major factor in suicides.

"Men may not even recognize that depression is the problem or that much can be done to help them," Dr. Thomas Insel, head of NIMH, said in a statement. "Effective treatments are available and the success rate is very high — more than 80 percent — for people who seek help."

When depression strikes, men are more likely to seek relief with drugs or alcohol, or to become frustrated and angry. Some respond with compulsive work or attention to hobbies. Others may engage in reckless behavior.

"We need to understand how men respond to stress and symptoms associated with depression and how to alert physicians to better recognize and treat depressive disorders in men," Dr. Dennis Charney, chief of the NIMH mood and anxiety disorders program, said in a statement.