Stuff 07 April 2003

NEW DELI: Scientists may have identified the deadly respiratory virus which has killed more than 90 people and this could help control its spread, the head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) says.

Gro Harlem Brundtland, secretary-general of the UN's health agency, said laboratory tests indicated the virus behind Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) belonged to the corona family that also causes the common cold.

"So hopefully this intense effort will pay off," she said yesterday, adding however that she had no idea how long it would take to control the outbreak.

Scientists have been struggling to identify the virus as a first crucial step towards trying to control its spread.

Brundtland said international cooperation was needed to battle the flu-like disease and added that China, where the outbreak started late last year, should have shared information much earlier.

The Chinese government has come under fire for a lack of transparency over the disease which has spread around the world, killing more than 90 people and infecting almost 2600.

"I think we are now seeing good collaboration but of course it would have been helpful if we had been able at an early stage to gain access and send the WHO team in."

A team of WHO experts is in Guangdong, which accounts for an overwhelming majority of the total number of deaths and infections in China, to investigate the outbreak.

"We were earlier into Hong Kong then into Guangdong. Now I think the channels are open," she said.

She said it was difficult to say how long it would take to control the disease.

"I wouldn't dare to guess. What we can do is use the expertise worldwide and do whatever is possible," she said, adding that in some countries the governments had acted swiftly and effectively.

"What we can see is that in some of the places where a lot of effort has come in to contain, limit the spread, isolate and deal with the cases...the result has been quite positive."

Symptoms of SARS include a fever above 38 degrees Celsius, aches, coughing and breathing difficulty.

"There could be a number of other people who are really symptomless and who don't really know," she said, but added that such people were not likely to spread the virus.

"Usually in these kind of viruses, it is those who are sick who are the ones that spread."

The virus spreads through droplets by sneezing or coughing, according to WHO, but they have not ruled out the possibility of the virus being airborne.

BBC Last Updated:  Monday, 7 April, 2003, 14:23 GMT 15:23 UK

Retail sales in Hong Kong have fallen by 50% since the outbreak of the deadly pneumonia-type Sars virus, a retail group has said.

The Hong Kong Retail Management Association said it would take months for consumer confidence to recover, as shoppers continued to stay at home to avoid the illness that is so far believed to be responsible for 95 deaths worldwide.

The economic effects of the virus have been felt across Asia.

Firms in China have been issuing face masks to staff and disinfecting offices, and Singapore is to cut its economic growth target as its retail and tourism sectors continue to lose business because of Sars.

The tourism industry has been badly affected across the region.

Economists have also warned that Taiwan's trade figures may be hit by measures designed to prevent the spread of the illness that originated in China, Taiwan's largest market.

Staying at home

Investment banks have reduced their forecasts for economic growth in Hong Kong this year in light of the effects of Sars.

Tourism and retail sectors have been particularly badly affected as people avoid crowded areas in regions where incidents of the virus are high.

Yu Pang Chun, chairman of the Hong Kong Retail Management Association, has called on landlords to halve rents to merchants for three months to help soften the blow.

The Hong Kong Tourism Board said there was a 10% drop in visitors to the territory in the second half of March compared with the same period last year and many flights to the territory have been cancelled.

On Monday, one-quarter of the flights in and out of Hong Kong International Airport were ditched, and 17% of the scheduled flights for April are off the board.

Preventative measures

The World Health Organisation has advised travellers to avoid Hong Kong and the Chinese province of Guangdong.

Some workers have been issued with protective masks

Travel restrictions designed to prevent the spread of the virus are also resulting in companies losing business.

Hong Kong's watch industry has been forced out of a trade fair in Switzerland, owing to concerns over the illness.

The Federation of Hong Kong Watch Trades and Industries said the ban could lose its members HK$10bn ($1.3bn; £830m) worth of business and it plans to sue the organisers for damages.

But Hong Kong's Trade Development Council plans to press ahead with its April trade fairs despite concerns that turnout may be effected by the fear of Sars.

Fear of the virus is also hurting Australia's tourism sector with the country's Federal Tourism Minister describing Sars as the biggest threat to the industry.

Australia has launched a crisis plan to support tourism - one of the most lucrative sectors of the economy.

The plan targets travellers who can reach Australia without having to stopover in areas of Asia that are affected by Sars.

Employers' concerns

Foreign firms with operations in China have reviewed the safety of their staff following the death of a Finnish official with the China office of the International Labour Organisation from the Sars virus.

In the Shanghai offices of German home fittings company Kohler, staff have been issued with medicine and protective face masks and offices are disinfected regularly.

Also in Shanghai, Nestle has issued a memo to staff with information on the disease and has cancelled an event so staff do not have to fly in to the area.

German chemicals maker BASF has set up a special team to ensure staff are aware of the latest information on the disease and high demand from foreign executives has led Beijing United Family Hospital to arrange special presentations to explain prevention of Sars.

Costly

In Singapore the government has said it plans to cut its 2003 growth target of 2.5% as a result of the effects of the Sars virus.

There have been 101 suspected cases of Sars in Singapore, and six deaths.

Economists at BNP Paribas have cut their 2003 growth forecast for the country from 4% to 2.5% as they believe Singapore is likely to be one of countries worst hit by the virus.

Joseph Tan at Standard Chartered Bank believes the effect on tourism alone could cost the country $13m a week, and tourism accounts for over 7% of the country's GDP.

However the World Health Organisation has said that Singapore has nearly contained its epidemic after a dramatic slowdown in infections, although it said a clearer assessment would be made in another week or two.

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CBS Apr 5, 2003 8:35 am US/Eastern

(CBS) (GUANGZHOU, China) An international team is turning up possible clues to the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome as it tries to follow the disease's tracks across the bustling landscape of southern China.

Chinese experts in hard-hit Guangdong province told the scientists they have found a rare form of airborne chlamydia in some of their SARS patients, raising the possibility that more than one germ may be involved. Other Chinese cases suggest the disease might be passed by touching something tainted by a sick person's mucous or saliva.

SARS continued to spread Saturday even as health officials stepped up their efforts to contain the disease. New cases were reported in Indonesia and Sri Lanka, while Hong Kong reported three more deaths and Malaysia announced its first.

In the U.S., President Bush Friday added SARS to a list of communicable diseases that people can be involuntarily quarantined for. The president signed an executive order adding SARS to the list that includes cholera, diphtheria, smallpox and other diseases.

It's the first time a new disease has been added to the list in two decades.

"If spread in the population," the order says, SARS "would have severe public health consequences."

In Hong Kong, workers covered head to toe in protective gear captured rats and roaches at an apartment complex where at least 250 people were infected. They also rounded up pets — eight dogs, 14 cats, two hamsters and two turtles — after a cat was found to carry a coronavirus.

Coronaviruses are commonly found in animals, but microbiologists believe SARS is caused by a new form of coronavirus. Scientists are trying to determine if animals somehow carried the virus through the complex.

China responded Saturday to criticism of its handling of the outbreak by promising to create a disease warning system and keep its public better informed.

Vice Premier Wu Yi called for establishment of such a system "with emphasis placed on a public health information system," the official Xinhua News Agency and official newspapers said.

Wu's comments were the highest-level response yet to demands that the reflexively secretive communist government change how it handles such outbreaks. It followed an extraordinary apology Friday by the country's top disease-prevention official amid complaints that China released information too slowly.

On Saturday, the World Health Organization team met experts at Zhongshan University who collected hundreds of specimens of blood, lung fluid and other materials from people who died of SARS and those who recovered, said Dr. Robert Breiman, the team leader.

The team wants to map the spread of the disease in Guangdong. WHO suggested comparing samples to find out whether those who died fell victim to a combination of viruses or bacteria, not just one strain, Breiman said.

Chinese authorities say they found a rare, airborne form of chlamydia — a virus usually transmitted through sexual contact — in many who died.

"It raises the question of, if you have one pathogen and you get hit with, say, coronavirus (do) you get a particularly bad disease?" Breiman said. "Or are you more likely to transmit? Do you become what we call a `super spreader'?"

The WHO specialists say a key part of their search will be to draw on knowledge of Chinese experts who know the region and physicians with experience treating SARS patients.

SARS has killed at least 82 people in Asia and Canada and sickened at least 2,200 in more than a dozen nations. Mainland China accounts for more than half the fatalities.

No cure has been found, though health officials say most sufferers recover with timely hospital care. Symptoms include high fever, aches, dry cough and shortness of breath.

On Friday, the WHO team visited Foshan, an industrial city in Guangdong where provincial officials say the world's first known SARS case occurred in November. Guangdong accounts for 40 of the 46 deaths reported by China.

The WHO team said a key to the disease's speedy — yet seemingly erratic — transmission could lie in how the apparent first case, an unidentified businessman, passed it to four people without infecting his children. He survived and was released from the hospital in January.

Many of the world's flu strains are traced to Guangdong and farms where people are believed to contract diseases from pigs and ducks.

But the WHO team says most Chinese SARS cases are city dwellers, and Breiman said no link to animals has been established.

"Contact with animals is still being looked into, but nothing convincing one way or the other has come out," he said.

Another important clue that WHO unearthed from data provided by Foshan health authorities: The illness, originally thought to be transmitted primarily through such direct contacts as coughing and sneezing, appears also to be passed indirectly.

Five of the 24 cases in Foshan show no actual "trace of transmission" to others, suggesting that infection can be spread by touching something tainted by a sick person's mucous or saliva, the experts said.

The spread of SARS has disrupted air travel and forced the closure of schools, hospitals and businesses in many countries. Hong Kong's airport authority said 116 flights, one-fifth of all flights to the territory, were canceled on Saturday.

<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.

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.