Posted on 03/30/2003 12:25:28 AM PST by Prince Charles
Pneumonia crisis grips Hong Kong
Sunday 30 March 2003, 5:05 PM
Christians and Taoists prayed in Hong Kong for an end to the new flu-like disease that has killed 56 people worldwide and shows no signs of letting up in a territory now gripped in fear.
Thousands more people have put on surgical masks, taxi drivers cleaned out their cars, concerts and protests were cancelled and the horse-racing track in suburban Shatin saw its lowest attendance ever as many of the territory's fervent gamblers stayed home.
The latest victim of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, was an Italian doctor who was the first to identify the outbreak in Hanoi, where four people have died.
The World Health Organisation said Dr Carlo Urbani, 46, a WHO expert on communicable diseases, died on Saturday in Thailand where he had been receiving treatment after becoming infected in Vietnam.
The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said that none of the antiviral drugs or other treatments tested against SARS had been effective.
US experts said anyone planning non-essential travel to mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore or Hanoi "may wish to postpone their trips".
The Geneva-based WHO says the disease is spreading via international travellers, and nations across Asia are fighting to contain the illness.
CDC head Dr Julie Gerberding warned that the "global epidemic continues to expand". At least 59 suspected SARS cases are being monitored in the United States and 37 in Canada, where three people have died.
Canada's health officials said that as many as 100 people - mostly health care workers - might be sick from an outbreak of a deadly respiratory illness in Ontario, the country's largest province.
Mainland China has suffered more than half of the world's 1,550 cases of SARS and 34 of the deaths.
But the WHO has said it was particularly worried about the spread of the disease in Hong Kong, which has been reporting dozens of new cases daily, including 45 on Saturday.
SARS spread to other countries from Hong Kong after an infected mainland Chinese medical professor passed the illness to seven other people in a Kowloon hotel last month and they, in turn, carried the disease to Singapore, Vietnam and Canada.
About 50 people from Christian churches prayed in a downtown Hong Kong park, displaying a banner that said: "Don't be afraid, just believe."
The Taoist Wong Tai Sin Temple held a six-hour prayer session for world peace and an end to the SARS outbreak.
Horse racing is a serious passion in Hong Kong, but just 13,237 people showed up for Saturday's races in Shatin, the lowest figure since the track opened in 1978, the Hong Kong Jockey Club said.
This now looks like a full-blown outbreak in Hong Kong.
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