- (AFP) -- The World Health Organisation (WHO) said the
SARS problem in Beijing is far worse than China has previously admitted
and announced that the deadly virus, which killed at least nine people,
is related to the common cold.
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- Top researchers from 13 different laboratories around
the world announced they had pinpointed the coronavirus as the cause for
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).
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- "These colleagues have come to consensus agreement
that we can now say that the disease called SARS first reported on March
12 is being caused by the coronavirus," chief researcher Klaus Stohr
told journalists in Geneva.
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- He said the confirmation would allow them to refine diagnostic
tests and steer a clear path to fight the disease, although another member
of the team said it would take "months to years" to develop a
full treatment.
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- The breakthrough was a rare ray of sunshine on an otherwise
bleak day, with nine more deaths reported in Asia and the travel sector
bracing for a grim Easter weekend.
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- Five deaths were announced in Hong Kong, where the respiratory
illness has killed 29 people in the past five days alone, with another
three in Singapore -- the city-state's biggest daily toll yet.
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- One more victim in China brought the total confirmed
global death toll from the virus to 161.
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- However, the real toll could be far higher after the
WHO implicitly accused the Chinese authorities of covering up the epidemic
in the capital Beijing, thereby casting doubt on all the official Chinese
SARS figures.
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- Since being criticised for not coming clean about the
virus when it first emerged in the southern province of Guangdong in November,
China has repeatedly insisted the epidemic was under control and belatedly
started making public SARS statistics.
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- But the WHO said in Beijing alone there were now thought
to be several hundred cases, compared to the official figure of 40, and
that over 1,000 people were under observation in the capital's hospitals.
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- "I would guess the range would be between 100 and
200 probable cases in Beijing," Alan Schnur, a WHO infectious disease
expert, told reporters after a WHO team was allowed access to two military
hospitals.
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- The official number of Chinese cases is 1,455, but the
WHO said the reporting and surveillance systems needed to be urgently improved
and without more data they could not comment on the true situation nationwide.
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- Of particular concern are the more remote areas of Shanxi
province and Inner Mongolia, where nearly 100 patients have been diagnosed
with SARS and the medical facilities lag far behind the capital.
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- More than 3,500 probable or suspected cases of SARS have
now been recorded in around 30 countries. China has recorded 65 deaths,
Hong Kong 61 -- not including an American teacher who died in a Hong Kong
hospital last week after falling ill in southern China -- Canada 13, Singapore
13, Vietnam five, Thailand two and Malaysia one.
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- In Hong Kong -- where 36 new cases were reported, taking
the total number to 1,268 -- Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa insisted that
despite the spike in deaths, measures to control the spread of the illness
were working and that most patients were responding to treatment.
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- "I believe we are now gradually getting on top of
the situation and in time you will see the effects," said Tung, announcing
temperature checks at airports for travellers and a staggered re-opening
of schools.
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- The epidemic has dealt a body blow to Hong Kong's international
image and economy. Consumer spending has collapsed as people avoid public
places, putting thousands of small businesses at risk.
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- Tourists and business travellers are avoiding the territory,
causing the cancellation of nearly 200 flights per day, and Standard and
Poor's lowered Hong Kong's predicted economic growth rate for the year
by 1.5 percentage points.
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- Five weeks after the WHO first raised the alarm about
the epidemic new cases are still being reported around the world. Malaysia,
France, Indonesia and Jordan reported new suspected cases Wednesday.
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- Sweden also reported a total of four probable SARS to
the World Health Organization (WHO), the Swedish Institute for Infectious
Disease Control said on Wednesday, three more since the first was identified
at the beginning of April.
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- In Canada, the country worst affected outside Asia, seven
new suspected cases were announced Wednesday, bringing the total to 303.
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- The outbreak has centred on Toronto after a 78-year-old
woman returned from Hong Kong, unwittingly spreading SARS to her family,
which then infected health care workers and hospital patients.
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- However fears have emerged the illness may have spread
into the wider community after 29 members of a Catholic group were feared
to have been infected and 500 others were placed in quarantine.
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