China Reports Two Confirmed SARS Cases(one dead, hundreds quarantined)

BEIJING - China reported two confirmed SARS (news - web sites) cases on Friday and said one of two other people suspected of having the disease has died, apparently the first SARS fatality in the country since July. Hundreds of people have been quarantined.

The confirmed cases both had worked in laboratories in Beijing for China's Centers for Disease Control and were probably infected there, Xinhua said. They were identified as a 31-year-old man from Beijing and a 26-year-old woman in central Anhui province, the first cases reported in those areas since last summer.

In addition, Beijing and Anhui each have one suspected case of the respiratory disease, the official Xinhua News Agency said, citing a health ministry official.

One of the suspected cases — the mother of a 26-year-old medical student in Anhui — has died. The mother apparently got the illness from her daughter, the confirmed case in Anhui. China's last SARS fatality was in July.

"When the daughter was ill, the mother accompanied her all the time," the ministry said in a statement on its Web site.

The mother was hospitalized April 8 with a fever and an unidentified pneumonia virus, the statement said.

The daughter was treated last month for viral pneumonia at Beijing's Jiangong Hospital, where she came into contact with a 20-year-old nurse who was identified as the suspected case in Beijing.

In Anhui, 117 people were quarantined and one person showed symptoms of fever — a key symptom. In Beijing, 188 were quarantined and five reportedly had fevers.

In December and January, four cases were reported in the southern province of Guangdong, where the flu-like disease first emerged. All four patients recovered.

Health officials on Friday isolated at least five other people who reported suffering fevers — a key symptom — and were monitoring scores more.

SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, triggered a global health crisis last year that killed 774 people — 349 of them in mainland China. More than 8,000 were sickened around the world. The disease subsided in China last summer.

China was harshly criticized for withholding information about SARS when it first broke out last year, but later pledged to be more open.

On Thursday the Health Ministry ordered local authorities to step up efforts to prevent SARS. Local authorities were told to resume filing daily status reports on the disease, even if they have no cases, it said.

When the SARS outbreak was at its peak, Beijing was the hardest-hit city in the world. Schools, cinemas and restaurants were closed to prevent crowds that might spread the virus. Thousands of people were quarantined in their homes.

Disease epidemics 'likely'

April 22, 2004
A GROWING global population and unprecedented international travel have put humankind at risk of uncontrollable outbreaks of potentially hundreds of new diseases, a virus expert has warned.

The deadly SARS virus has largely been controlled and international bird flu containment efforts continue, but Professor Frank Fenner said further animal-to-human epidemics were "inevitable".

"With population growth of another three billion (projected) in the next 30 or 40 years, that's putting enormous pressure on the environment," Prof Fenner said.

"People are moving into areas where they didn't live before, or living in conditions where they do come into contact with either insects transmitting these viruses from wild animals or contact with wild animals themselves.

"Now there's such an enormous amount of air travel, and all these diseases have got incubation periods of at least a couple of days, so that's enough time for any person to get to any part of the world."

Since 1970, Prof Fenner said 35 different viruses have leapt from animals to humans then been spread to distant parts of the world.

"West Nile was the last one - that disease was confined to Europe and Asia but it got to the United States," he said.

"It's now well established in north America and it's killing off birds and human beings."

In a recent study of the viruses carried by domestic animals including dogs, cats, cattle and horses, Prof Fenner found at least 20 groups of viruses in every species.

"It's likely that wild animals are just the same," he added.

The 89-year-old academic, who was involved in the global eradication of smallpox, early World War II malaria research, and the rabbit virus myxomatosis, is to speak tonight at Melbourne's Monash University about the threat of bioterrorism.

However, he said the next disease epidemic WAs much more likely to come from nature than terrorists.

"The bioterrorism threat has been around for a long time but the only successful example of it being used was the recent anthrax scare in the United States," Prof Fenner said.

"There were under a dozen deaths and anthrax cannot be passed from one human being to another."

Despite his dire warning, Prof Fenner said the World Health Organisation's (WHO) management of SARS was encouraging.

"Containment is necessary in the case of a disease that's contagious and ... the handling of SARS shows how well it can be done," he said.

"Just as air travel puts a new dimension on spread around the world, so now we've got electronic communications and I think the WHO did a splendid job in organising communications so that people knew what to expect, knew what to do."

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	Kimchi
	Bulgogi