Ananova: 

Everton have been forced to cancel their post-season tour of China due to concerns over the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome in the region.

Goodison Park officials have spent the past two weeks monitoring the spread of the potentially fatal virus and today opted to pull the plug on the trip.

David Moyes' men were scheduled to spend time in Hong Kong and Shenzhen, but have followed Foreign Office advice and cancelled the tour.

Everton's head of corporate affairs and PR Ian Ross told the club's official website: "Sadly, we have to announce that the club's proposed trip to China has been cancelled.

"The simple truth is that we could not take the risk of exposing anyone - be they players, officials or supporters - to the possibility of infection by the SARS virus.

"We have taken expert advice on a daily basis over the past fortnight and we have now been advised not to travel to the Far East at this point in time.

"The club doctor has spoken at length with the relevant authorities both in the United Kingdom and in China.

"There is an understandable degree of disappointment inside the club because this particular trip had been long in the planning and was eagerly anticipated.

"As a consequence of our sponsorship deal with Kejian, our profile in China is exceedingly high. It would, I suspect, have been an illuminating and successful trip.

"However, our first responsibility is to our supporters and to our players - we just cannot compromise where safety is concerned. It is bitterly disappointing but the health of those who work for this club and who play football for this club must come first."

<a href=www.upi.com>UPI From the Science & Technology Desk Published 4/6/2003 9:27 AM View printer-friendly version

The death Sunday of a Finnish man from severe acute respiratory syndrome capped a series of regional developments on the mysterious disease.

Pekka Aro, 53, worked in the Beijing office of the International Labor Organization. He died from SARS at 1:25 a.m. Sunday, Dr. Guo Jiyong, deputy director general of the Beijing Municipal Health Department, said at a news conference.

Aro showed symptoms of the disease after arriving in Beijing from Bangkok, Thailand, on March 23, officials said. He was hospitalized April 2 in Beijing's Ditan Hospital, where he died Sunday.

Aro is the first foreigner to die from the flu-like illness in china. Officials in Beijing said he most likely was infected overseas.

His death brings the number of people who have died from the disease in mainland China to 52. On Saturday, China's Ministry of Health said there were 1,247 cases of the disease, of whom 51 had died.

The disease, which has mainly affected China's Guangdong province and adjacent Hong Kong, has spread to other parts of the world, which are struggling to cope with the outbreak that has killed at least 89 people thus far.

In Pakistan Sunday, the government directed all airports to screen incoming airline passengers for SARS.

In Japan, the government said it would ask local bodies to draw up plans to deal with a potential outbreak.

"Given so many patients in surrounding countries, we will have to prepare ourselves" for an outbreak of SARS, Health Minister Chikara Sakaguchi told a meeting of the Japanese Association of Medical Sciences.

Last Thursday, Japan designated SARS as an infectious disease, and tightened quarantine inspections at airports and issued travel warnings. It has reported three probable cases of the disease, and 19 suspected cases.

IHT Thomas Crampton/IHT IHT Monday, April 7, 2003   HONG KONG Pressure mounted Sunday on health systems in several Asian countries as the mysterious killer pneumonia infected more healthcare workers and sent more victims to hospitals.

Doctors and nurses in Singapore, Hong Kong and Vietnam were reported coming down with suspected cases of the disease, highlighting the dangers of infection even among those most highly trained to protect themselves. The disease. known as severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, has continued to spread with suspected new cases reported in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Kuwait. In addition, Malaysia announced its first death.

Australia and the United States enacted measures to allow quick quarantine of anyone suspected of infection, while officials in Canada, which has suffered the largest local spreading of the disease outside Asia, expressed cautious optimism this weekend that an outbreak may have come under control.

The newly emerged disease has a mortality rate of about 4 percent. It has killed at least 90 people and infected more than 2,400 in 18 countries. Spread through contact with the spittle of an infected victim and perhaps other means, the little-understood disease can reduce formerly healthy patients to reliance on a respirator within days.

In Hong Kong, where authorities are battling a persistently rising number of cases, many residents spurned tradition to stay at home over the normally heavily traveled Ching Ming holiday. Usually, thousands of Hong Kong families tend their ancestor's graves during the holiday in Guangdong, the Chinese province where the outbreak began last November.

Just 127,000 people traveled from Hong Kong to Guangdong on Friday, compared with 270,000 people on the same day last year. Millions, however, are due to travel throughout China soon for the Golden Week holiday starting May 1. China's government has promoted the holiday in recent years as a way to increase consumer spending.

Heavily criticized for its slow and incomplete disclosure of statistics, China on Sunday announced the first death of a resident expatriate and made an extraordinary apology for botched efforts at combating the disease.

Pekka Aro, a Finnish man working for the Beijing office of the International Labor Organization, died Sunday, bringing China's official death toll from the disease to 52. While China reported 1,247 people infected with the disease, the government's lack of cooperation with the World Health Organization has left many skeptical of its statistics.

Chinese government statements that the outbreak is under control have been contradicted by officials from the World Health Organization who say the disease is still spreading in China. Reports by foreign reporters citing unnamed hospital officials have put the number of infected patients under treatment in Beijing at 50, more than four times the official figure. Breaking from the Chinese government's practice of never acknowledging mistakes, a top health official apologized over the weekend for failing to inform the public about the disease.

"We apologize here to all of you that our health departments did not have enough close cooperation with the media," Li Liming, director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control, said at a news conference in Beijing. "We weren't able to muster our forces in helping to provide everyone with scientific publicity and allowing the masses to get hold of this sort of knowledge." Having waited 11 days before giving permission for a team of specialists dispatched by the World Health Organization to visit Guangdong, the Chinese government continues to restrict the scientists' work. The agenda for the scientists has been set and controlled by Chinese officials, and by Saturday they still had not received laboratory specimen samples from the SARS cases in China.

Specimens are crucial for identifying the virus and controlling its spread. Since China lacks the technology for proper testing, the samples must be taken overseas or the equipment must be imported.

Robert Breiman, head of the World Health Organization team, said, "We've proposed that both happen and we're assuming that's what will happen. Orally, they've agreed. We're waiting for it to actually happen."

A persistently rising number of cases in Hong Kong has leading doctors warning that the healthcare system is headed for crisis. In addition to health workers themselves succumbing to the disease, more patients are being admitted with the disease than discharged.

The Hong Kong government reported 81 new cases and five deaths over the weekend, bringing the total infected to 842 and the deaths to 22. By Sunday 108 patients required intensive care, compared with 52 a week earlier.

Already wearing surgical masks and shunning public places, residents stepped up precautionary measures. Roman Catholic churches removed basins of holy water and worshipers, many of whom wore masks, were urged not to hold hands during prayers. In Singapore, where SARS has sickened 103 people and killed six, a doctor, 20 nurses and a midwife from Singapore General Hospital have been isolated after showing symptoms of the disease. The suspected infections came despite Singapore's quick creation of some of the world's strictest immigration controls and quarantine measures against spreading of the disease.

<a href=www.upi.com>UPI From the International Desk Published 4/7/2003 8:26 AM

SINGAPORE, April 7 (UPI) -- Six new cases of that severe acute respiratory syndrome were reported in Singapore Monday.

All were new cases were nurses but some were from three hospitals where SARS patients are not treated, raising fears that isolation strategies have failed.

The ministry of health also reported the deaths of two SARS patients, bringing the total to eight out of 112 diagnosed cases. The latest fatalities include a doctor and the mother of Esther Mok, the former flight attendant who is linked to 91 confirmed SARS infections.

As of Monday, SARS patients remained hospitalized, including 12 in intensive care.

The number of people under home quarantine has fallen to 133.

news.com.au By Malcolm Cole April 08, 2003

AUSTRALIA'S international tourism industry has been declared in crisis.

The twin impact of the Iraq war and the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome virus is expected to severely damage already ailing tourist businesses.

Federal Tourism Minister Joe Hockey has activated a national tourism crisis response plan in an effort to counteract any SARS-related downturn in inbound visitor numbers.

The Australian Tourist Commission is slashing promotions in markets where people are shunning holiday travel as a result of SARS, and is refocusing its efforts in positive areas.

Mr Hockey said federal and state officials were holding daily crisis meetings to provide "an early warning" of weakening tourism markets and to advise on how to redirect marketing efforts.

"If we see an area deteriorating then we're able to move resources into another area to enable it to grow," Mr Hockey said. "There's some markets at the moment where you could give them $1000 and they wouldn't get on a plane."

But other areas, such as New Zealand and Japan, were still considered positive markets for Australia, and would be given an increase in promotions efforts.

"The Government is particularly concerned about small tourism businesses in areas with a high exposure to international markets such as Cairns, the Gold Coast, the Northern Territory and parts of Western Australia," Mr Hockey said.

He said promotions in NZ would be boosted with an extra $500,000 to be spent on campaigns in coming days.

Authorities would also attempt to spread the message that extra protections against SARS have been put in place at airports and that no cases had so far been detected in Australia.

Mr Hockey is in the final stages of formulating a 10-year strategic plan for tourism, which is expected to be funded with leftover money from the Ansett levy.

The head of Sydney Airport, Max Moore-Wilton, has added his voice to calls for any additional Ansett funding to be used on increasing airport security.

Mr Moore-Wilton, the former secretary of the Prime Minister's Department, said the cost of implementing X-ray scanning for all checked baggage at major airports would cost $160 million – double the Government's estimate.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong-based airline Cathay Pacific has cut some of its Melbourne to Hong Kong flights.

Airline spokesman David Bell said the flights had been reduced from 11 to seven a week because of the SARS outbreak.

"All we know is passenger numbers have dropped quite dramatically on the route," Mr Bell said.

"Certainly SARS is having a major impact but it is also possible there is some impact from the war on Iraq. It is difficult to know exactly which is which."

Last week, Singapore Airlines cut 60 services because of fears over SARS and the war. Lost services include seven flights from Perth to Singapore. Last month the airline announced another 65 cuts, representing a total loss of 13.6 per cent of its services.

Qantas also reduced planned international flying by up to 20 per cent between April 1 and mid-July in response to the war and SARS.