Fear spreads through HK as more infected with Sars

Straits Times ^ | March 29, 1.55 pm (Singapore time)

[Lessismore]

HONGKONG -- Fear spread through Hongkong on Saturday after 58 new cases of a deadly flu-like disease were reported in one day. Bank offices closed, much activity in the bustling city ground to halt, and the Rolling Stones postponed concerts both in Hongkong and on the Chinese mainland.

Figures released late on Friday showed Hongkong's biggest one-day increase since the World Health Organisation issued a global health alert this month, with 58 new cases. There were 51 a day earlier.

Many of the new cases were among residents of an apartment complex in the Kowloon Bay section, but health officials are unsure why the disease took hold there. Medical teams worked until early Saturday at the Amoy Gardens complex, interviewing residents and taking environmental samples to see if the disease is still there.

Global health officials said Hongkong was the world's most severely affected area. Its health secretary has warned that more people will get sick, but did not predict how soon the illness could be contained.

Worries about severe acute respiratory syndrome, or Sars, have gripped the former British colony, where at least 425 people have been infected and 11 have died. Sars has sickened 1,485 people globally and killed at least 54, with the biggest number of cases and deaths in China's Guangdong province, where an earlier outbreak began in November.

Thousands of Hongkongers are wearing surgical masks around town, but many are not going around at all -- ominously slowing down an already feeble economy.

The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp, the biggest lender in town, shut part of a floor in its main office on Saturday because a worker had become sick.

The Bank of China also closed a branch on Saturday for a thorough cleaning after a staff member fell ill. Several other companies have done the same.

Legendary British rockers the Rolling Stones put off what would have been their first concerts in mainland China, after postponing two shows this weekend in Hongkong.

Some cabin crews on Cathay Pacific Airways are wearing masks, and spokesman Maria Yu said some flights may be cut.

Hongkong health secretary Yeoh Eng Kiong said on Friday that more residents will become sick, even though quarantine measures have been imposed on more than 1,000 people.