- China dispatched special squads to round up sick people
and Singapore vowed to jail citizens who defied quarantine orders as governments
adopted increasingly desperate measures to contain the killer SARS epidemic.
-
- But despite a coordinated global drive against Severe
Acute Respiratory Syndrome, 15 new fatalities and hundreds of new cases
were reported, and the economic cost of the epidemic in Asia kept rising.
-
- SARS has defied global health checks to spread to over
25 countries. Latest figures Wednesday showed nine new deaths and 147 new
cases in China, as well as six fatalities and 32 new cases in Hong Kong.
-
- Seven weeks after the World Health Organisation issued
a global alert about SARS -- for which there is no cure or vaccine -- at
least 248 people have died from the illness and over 4,300 cases have been
reported.
-
- The scale of the task ahead was outlined in a gloomy
situation report by the US Centers for Disease Control.
-
- "We still have no capacity to predict where it's
going or how large it's ultimately going to be," said CDC head Julie
Gerberding.
-
- "We're very sobered by the ongoing transmission
in parts of the world, including Hong Kong where very, very appropriate
public health steps have been taken, and yet the epidemic is continuing
to evolve there."
-
- Much of the focus is now on China, where the authorities
said Wednesday they were adopting ougher measures in an attempt to prevent
SARS criss-crossing the vast country and taking a hold on rural areas.
-
- After facing strong criticism over its failure to act
sooner, the government this week has launched frenzied efforts to report
the extent of the disease and to contain its damaging fall-out.
-
- State media said every town throughout China was given
"strict orders" to report on SARS cases in all hospitals, and
that tens of thousands of people had been mobilized for the effort.
-
- In Beijing, along with Hong Kong the worst affected city
in the world, the government dispatched hundreds of investigators to round
up citizens with the disease's flu-like symptoms and shut down the city's
primary and secondary schools for a month.
-
- "Unceasingly, the investigations into the epidemic
must identify all with symptoms, and not let one case escape," said
Liu Qi, Communist Party chief in the capital.
-
- China has recorded 106 deaths and 2,305 confirmed cases
since the disease first emerged in the southern province of Guangdong in
November.
-
- In Singapore, where 14 people have died and several thousand
quarantined, Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong vowed to push through legislation
allowing the government to jail people who broke isolation orders.
-
- France and the Australian state of New South Wales said
they would add SARS to a list of dangerous diseases thereby allowing the
forcible hospitalization of victims.
-
- And both the Philippines and Mauritius enacted new quarantine
measures.
-
- Canada, the worst affected area outside Asia with more
than 300 cases, announced a 15th death and eight new cases.
-
- While in Hong Kong, where 105 people have died from SARS
and over 1,400 cases have been recorded, the government announced a 1.5
billion US dollar package to help businesses hit by a collapse in consumer
spending.
-
- The epidemic is having a particularly devastating impact
on tourism and travel in Asia, and airlines are feeling the pain.
-
- Hong Kong-based carrier Cathay Pacific said it had now
cut 45 percent of all flights, while Air New Zealand said it was cutting
seven percent of flights and lowering its profits forecast for the year.
-
- Singapore said visitor arrivals fell nearly 70 percent
in the second week of April, while in the Philippines tourist arrivals
were down nearly 10 percent in March.
-
- The epidemic has also led to mass cancellations of concerts,
trade fairs, exhibitions and sporting events across Asia.
-
- The latest victims were the Arafura Games in the northern
Australian city of Darwin, bringing together athletes from across Asia,
and Hong Kong's famed dragon boat races. China's largest-ever car show
in Shanghai also closed three days early.
-
- In addition to China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Canada,
SARS deaths have been recorded in Vietnam (5), Thailand (2), Malaysia (1)
and the Philippines (1).
-
-
-
- Copyright © 2002 AFP. All rights reserved. All information
displayed in this section (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected
by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence
you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any
way commercially exploit any of the contents of this section without the
prior written consent of Agence France-Presses.
|
