- (AFP) -- The battle against a respiratory disease blamed
for at least nine deaths and hundreds of infections worldwide pressed ahead
as experts cautioned against drawing premature conclusions from early laboratory
findings.
-
- Scientists in Germany and Hong Kong -- where the baffling
epidemic has been traced to a budget hotel in which an ailing Chinese man
apparently infected fellow guests in February -- have isolated a virus
as the possible cause of the outbreak.
-
- "After weeks of bad news, the results of the work
done in Germany and Hong Kong are most heartening," Peter Cordingley,
a spokesman for the World Health Organization (WHO) Western Pacific regional
office in Manila, told AFP.
-
- "We are treating this as the beginning of a roadmap
to finding the cause of the outbreak. But it is early days. Much more work
must be done before we can say we have the makings of a breakthrough. We
are keeping our fingers crossed."
-
- Earlier, the WHO headquarters in Geneva also welcomed
the findings that a virus belonging to the paramyxoviridae family may be
causing the disease, classified as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).
-
- But it said "firm conclusions about the identity
of the causative agent are premature" and raised the possibility that
"a novel pathogen" might be the culprit.
-
- The WHO has listed nine deaths -- five in Hong Kong and
two each in Vietnam and Canada -- and 264 suspect and probable cases of
SARS, which manifests itself as an unusual form of pneumonia.
-
- A poll by AFP of tallies by national health authorities
showed that the number of cases could be higher.
-
- The WHO tally excludes seven deaths and more than 300
infections in mainland China, where an epidemic with the same indications
as SARS peaked in February. Experts are conducting tests to see if that
outbreak in Guangdong province was in fact the first SARS flare-up.
-
- Eleven suspected cases of SARS have been reported in
the United States, the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said Wednesday.
-
- The 11 cases, not yet verified, are persons who have
recently traveled in southeast Asia and have "fever and respiratory
symptoms," CDC director Julie Gerberding said.
-
- In Hanoi, Vietnamese authorities and foreign diplomats
Thursday said they found the situation encouraging as the number of SARS
cases appeared to be stabilizing at 55, following two deaths.
-
- A 65-year-old French doctor who treated the first case
of SARS diagnosed in Vietnam, Jean-Paul Derosier, died Wednesday in Hanoi.
A Vietnamese nurse also involved in looking after victims died earlier.
-
- The WHO said Wednesday that it was confident that despite
a rising toll, SARS was largely under control outside China, Hong Kong
and Vietnam.
-
- Suspected new infections were reported Wednesday as far
as France, Ireland and Romania involving recent visitors to Asia.
-
- Hong Kong health authorities said the outbreak had been
traced to a sickly doctor from southern China who infected six other guests
at the Metropole Hotel in Kowloon district in February.
-
- The 64-year-old Chinese doctor was from the city of Guangzhou
and officials say he may have provided a link to the pneumonia outbreak
that ravaged southern China in February.
-
- The doctor and a 78-year-old Canadian woman later died.
The other five infected hotel guests -- three women from Singapore, an
elderly Canadian tourist and a local man -- have made a recovery.
-
-
-
- Copyright © 2002 AFP. All rights reserved. All information
displayed in this section (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected
by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence
you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any
way commercially exploit any of the contents of this section without the
prior written consent of Agence France-Presses.
|
