- BEIJING (Reuters) - The SARS
epidemic is showing no signs of fading in China, even though the number
of cases is declining, WHO experts said on Tuesday, as Taiwan reported
more infections and Greece said it may have its first case.
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- China said its death toll from the virus rose by 10,
to 262 deaths -- more than half the world's total -- and said 80 more people
had come down with the disease, 48 of them in Beijing, currently the hardest-hit
place in the world.
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- That was the fourth straight day of fewer than the 100
or more new cases in Beijing reported for more than two weeks.
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- But the World Health Organization said that did not mean
it could see light at the end of the tunnel in a country battling to keep
SARS from spreading into rural regions where health care is poor at best
-- although there was hope.
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- "We may be seeing a downward trend," WHO consultant
Keiji Fukuda told a news conference. "The bottom line is that it is
too early to say that the epidemic is tailing down, but we do hope to see
that in the next few weeks."
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- The lower numbers of new cases is helping ease the panic
that SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, spread in Beijing and
Hong Kong, where 225 people have died. And more people are emerging from
their homes.
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- But there were ominous signs the previously unknown virus,
which appeared in southern China in November, was starting to slow China's
staggering economic growth.
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- ECONOMIES HIT
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- China, the world's fastest-growing major economy, said
growth in foreign direct investment (FDI) and domestic savings slowed in
April.
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- Some economists said worse was to come for the country
that overtook the United States last year as the top destination for FDI
as foreign firms moved to tap its cheap labor and vast market.
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- "I think the SARS impact on actual FDI will be more
severe starting from this month, or even over the next couple months,"
said Chen Xingdong, an economist with investment bank BNP Paribas Peregrine
in Beijing.
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- The damaging economic ripples were also affecting Taiwan,
where 30 people have died. The government said it expected SARS to lop
2.9 percent off export orders in the second quarter of this year compared
with the first three months.
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- A Thai survey showed economic confidence fell in April
from March, in part because of SARS, even though it has had only a handful
of cases.
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- Airlines, among the industries most hurt by SARS, illustrated
their pain in hard numbers.
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- Cathay Pacific, Hong Kong's main carrier, said its passenger
traffic fell a year-on-year 65.7 percent in April.
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- China Southern, based in Guangdong, said it carried 36.5
percent fewer passengers in April than in the same month of last year.
Overall, passenger traffic on Chinese airlines fell a year-on-year 25.7
percent, the government said.
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- FIRST FOR GREECE?
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- From Guangdong, SARS has spread to more than 30 countries,
and Greece said it might have its first case -- a foreign female flight
attendant who arrived from Hong Kong.
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- "I stress this is not a confirmed case yet,"
Health Minister Costas Stephanis told Greek television.
-
- But the main worry is China, which covered up the extent
of the outbreak until last month, and the WHO's Fukuda said the government
was still not providing enough information.
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- The nation's 2.5 million military personnel was a problem,
he said.
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- "Numbers of cases occurring in military populations
are being reported to civilian authorities. However, a lot of the key details
about those cases -- some of the information about where, and so on --
that information is not being shared with the civilian authorities,"
he said.
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- "We feel that all of that information ... must be
shared with the civilian disease control authorities if this problem is
really to be handled."
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