Killer bug fear impacts wedding

news.com.au April 07, 2003

A MAGISTRATE has insisted on marrying a couple outside amid fears about the deadly SARS virus. Eric Sax insisted on the precaution at the Belgian ceremony after learning the groom had just arrived from China, according to local media reports.

China has been identified as the point of origin for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which has sparked a global health scare.

Sax told the La Derniere-Heure newspaper in Brussels that moving the wedding outside "was a simple precaution".

He said he decided to marry the couple outside the local town hall in Uccle, a chic Brussels suburb, after learning the groom, a Chinese national, had arrived from China just days before.