- (AFP) -- China admitted the SARS situation in the country
remained "grave" as the outbreak of atypical pneumonia kept exacting
a toll on Asian lives and economies.
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- Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao painted the situation in the
world's most populous nation in dark colors, saying fighting the virus
was now a top priority, according to the Xinhua news agency.
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- "Much progress has been made in combating the disease
so far, with the epidemic brought under control in some areas, but the
overall situation remains grave," Wen was quoted as telling a national
conference.
-
- His remarks were in stark contract to previous statements
by top officials that Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) was under
control and came as China updated its number of cases to 1,344, including
60 dead.
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- Globally, the death toll stands at 132 after Hong Kong
reported five new deaths on Sunday, taking the number of deaths from the
disease in the former British colony to 41.
-
- Canada, which reported three new deaths Saturday, now
has a total of 13 fatalities. Another in Vietnam reported Saturday brought
its death toll to five, with two fatalities recorded in Thailand and one
in Malaysia.
-
- More than 3,200 SARS cases have been acknowledged worldwide
with another eight in China's southern Guangdong province reported Monday.
-
- The mayor of Beijing admitted meanwhile that the city's
first case emerged six weeks ago.
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- "The first SARS patient treated in a hospital in
Beijing on March 1 has recovered," Mayor Meng Xuenong said, according
to the China Daily.
-
- The revelation appeared to confirm claims by a doctor
from the city's No. 301 Military Hospital that authorities were alerted
to the existence of SARS in Beijing much earlier than they have acknowledged.
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- They allegedly covered it up because it clashed with
the government's annual legislature, the National People's Congress, which
opened on March 5, according to the doctor.
-
- On Friday, the World Health Organisation (WHO) added
Beijing to its list of areas affected by SARS following indications that
"chains of local transmission are occurring".
-
- This put the city of 13 million on an exclusive list
that also includes two Chinese provinces, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore,
Hanoi and Toronto.
-
- In a belated attempt to allow the outside world to understand
conditions in the country where SARS probably originated, China has greenlighted
more WHO inspection teams.
-
- Five WHO experts were looking into Beijing's defenses
against the disease Monday, and Shanghai, China's largest city, had also
invited a WHO team to visit.
-
- The program of the Beijing team was kept under wraps
by the WHO, which also did not comment on the level of cooperation received
from Chinese authorities.
-
- China accounts for about half the global SARS fatalities,
and could wind up shouldering a large part of the economic loss as well,
as cancelations of high-profile events multiply.
-
- British advertising company Saatchi and Saatchi decided
to postpone an exhibition show scheduled at the Great Hall of the People,
in the heart of Beijing, in late April.
-
- But the economic impact of the deadly virus is regionwide,
and could tip Singapore and Hong Kong closer to a recession this year,
economists said.
-
- "Clearly, the most vulnerable economies are Hong
Kong and Singapore," said David Cohen, an economist at MMS International.
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- "Both are so dependent on tourism and business travelers
as well. If they are unable to contain SARS, it could clearly tip both
economies into a recession," he told AFP.
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- While analysts were busy with the forward-looking task
of predicting economic consequences, others engaged in the backward-looking
effort of finding out who contracted SARS when and where.
-
- Thailand's public health ministry said it would investigate
claims that a Kazakh man suspected of being infected with SARS may have
contracted the virus while in the kingdom.
-
- This followed statements by officials from the Central
Asian country that a man might have contracted the illness during a business
trip to Thailand from which he returned on March 17.
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