- China sacked its Health Minister and the mayor of Beijing
yesterday and cancelled a week-long May Day holiday after suddenly increasing
the figure for Sars cases in the capital.
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- Beijing has more than 700 confirmed and unconfirmed cases,
ten times more than initially admitted, putting it among the communities
hit hardest in the world, behind only Guangdong province and Hong Kong.
Even now there are doubts whether all the figures in China have been revealed.
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- The government's actions come after an emergency politburo
meeting on Thursday ended weeks of lies and evasions by top officials who
tried to deceive World Health Organisations experts struggling to control
the outbreak.
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- In the meantime, the sense of panic amid the Chinese
population has spiralled. Public opinion surveys conducted secretly by
the government have revealed a rising tide of anger. People have stopped
flying on planes and public meeting places are deserted. School and university
classes have been suspended. In Beijing all the main international hotels
are almost empty, while most people are wearing double face masks and disinfecting
their homes and offices. People have been told to eat garlic and a turnip-type
vegetable as an antidote. Foreign visits have been cancelled or postponed
including that of Tony Blair who was scheduled to arrive this week.
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- Shopkeepers are using surgical gloves and railway staff
are disinfecting stations and giving passengers random temperature checks.
-
- The growing unease was also evident in Canada, the country
affected worst outside Asia, where a 14th person has died. Fears that Toronto's
health system is now infected saw a leading hospital close its critical
care unit after four staff members began showing symptoms.
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- Meanwhile, Singapore, the country with the fourth-biggest
toll, shut its wholesale vegetable market and quarantined all 2,400 workers.
South Korea said it was considering a ban on some blood donations. Indonesia
deployed troops to help medical staff to examine returning workers and
normally bustling Hong Kong was like a ghost town .
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- China's admission that things were far worse came from
Gao Qiang, the deputy health minister, who said an investigation ordered
by leaders on 15 April had revealed 339 infections, 18 deaths and 402 suspected
cases in Beijing - vastly higher than the 37 cases and four deaths reported
earlier. Such public sackings and public admissions of failure are extremely
rare in Chinese politics where the principle of collective responsibility
is normally applied "Someone had to be held accountable," said
a Chinese government source.
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- Mr Gao denied that his ministry had deliberately misrepresented
the facts.
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- "There is an essential difference between inaccuracy
of Sars statistics and intentional cover-up of the situation of the disease,"
he said. China, he explained, had simply used a different system to report
cases. Zhang Winking, the Health Minister, and Ming Xenon, the Beijing
deputy party secretary, had repeatedly issued statements saying the position
was under control and that China was safe to visit. The Health Minister
said the disease was "under effective control".
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- On the contrary, the disease spread rapidly in the capital
but to cover it up the authorities moved patients into military hospitals
and did their utmost to deny access to investigators. When they did arrive,
the patients were moved out of their rooms and driven around the city.
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- The World Heath Organisation was alerted to the crisis
at China's largest transportation hub only by the courage of a military
doctor, Jiang Yanyong, 71, who took the bold step of publicly revealing
the number of cases he was aware of in the military hospitals.
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- WHO said on Wednesday there were probably as many as
200 people in Beijing infected with Sars, although the city government
was then insisting that there were only 37 cases.
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- At least eight of China's poorer provinces, including
Shanxi, Inner Mongolia and Ningxia, have reported Sars cases. Officials
said hospitals in those areas may not be able to cope with contagion and
the influx of patients.
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- The handling of the crisis has dealt China's reputation
a severe blow. While the top leadership is primarily concerned at the impact
on foreign invest-ment and economic growth, some observers hope it may
have wider consequences. Some speculate it could be used by the incoming
leadership to push for glasnost in the same way President Mikhail Gorbachev
exploited the Chernobyl nuclear accident to push through changes in the
former Soviet Union.
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- Until now, political reforms have not been on the agenda
of President Hu who said in a public appearance at military research institute
in Beijing yesterday he was confident of China's ability to find the methods
to combat Sars.
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- © 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
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- http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_medical/story.jsp?story=399016
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