- Four thousand people have been ordered to stay home under
quarantine in Beijing as the Sars outbreak in the Chinese capital worsens.
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- Thousands of students have also been banned from leaving
the city, a second major hospital has been sealed off and the beginning
of the country's football season has been delayed.
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- Patients and 2,000 workers were said to be under observation
at the People's Hospital of Peking University in Beijing, where more than
100 people suffering from Sars are being treated.
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- There were also reports of panic buying of food stocks
in Beijing.
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- Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome has killed 264 people
worldwide, including 110 in China.
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- There have been 16 deaths in Toronto, Canada, where officials
are fighting a World Health Organisation warning against travelling to
their city.
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- Two new deaths have also been recorded in the Philippines.
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- In Britain, the Government has been urged to classify
Sars alongside cholera and smallpox so that people arriving in the UK with
symptoms can be detained for treatment.
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- Shadow health secretary Dr Liam Fox said Britain's response
so far to the outbreak had been "feeble, complacent and irresponsible."
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- The Tories said the Government should make Sars a "notifiable
disease" under the Public Health (Control of Diseases) Act 1984.
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- This would enable officials to force people to get treatment,
destroy material exposed to the disease and make it a public duty not to
expose others to risk.
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- But chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson said all
six cases in Britain so far had been detected quickly and brought under
control.
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- "We are in very, very close daily contact with the
World Health Organisation and the other countries involved and, far from
being feeble or complacent, we are working very, very hard," he said.
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- The British Medical Association urged people not to panic
about Sars and said "all appropriate steps" were being taken
to deal with it.
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- http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-12297497,00.html
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