Mysterious Illness Spreads Havoc on Businesses

HONG KONG, April 2 ? As the highly contagious respiratory disease that began in China continues to spread, its impact on business activity is stretching from Hong Kong around the globe, disrupting complex supply chains and forcing industries from airlines to banking to adjust their operations.

UBS, the Swiss bank, is ordering employees returning to its European offices from trips to Asia to stay home for 10 days before reporting to work. Intel is canceling two major conferences in Asia for suppliers, customers and computer programmers. And KLM Royal Dutch Airlines has warned that the disease, known as severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, is hurting international air travel more than the war in Iraq.

Further disruption seemed probable after the World Health Organization yesterday urged travelers to avoid Hong Kong and Guangdong Province in China, the first time the W.H.O. has ever issued a global warning against travel to an area because of an infectious disease.

The warning from the W.H.O. came as the Centers for Disease Control said there were 85 suspected cases in 27 states, and China admitted yesterday that it had 1,190 suspected cases, not 806, and 46 deaths instead of the 34 it had previously acknowledged.

Another tidbit: Report: First Virus Victims Ate or Handled Wild Game

Wed April 2, 2003 09:04 PM ET

HONG KONG (Reuters) - The first victims of the deadly new virus spreading across the world were people in China's southern province of Guangdong who ate or handled wild game, the South China Morning Post reported on Thursday.

A top health expert in China said the earliest patients of the flu-like Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in Guangdong had close and continuous contact with chickens, ducks, pigeons and owls, the newspaper said.

"We will explore further if the disease was passed to human beings from wild animals. You know, Guangdong people like eating exotic animals and I don't find it a healthy practice," said Bi Shengli, a vice director at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

The earliest cases of the disease were traced to either chefs or bird vendors, Bi said.

The deadly virus is thought to have originated in southern China. Carried by travelers to Hong Kong, Vietnam, Singapore, Canada and other countries, the virus has killed 78 and infected 2,313 people so far. Many of those infected have since recovered.

Mainland China and Hong Kong account for most of the cases. The World Health Organisation and a growing list of countries have stepped up measures to keep the disease at bay and have warned people against traveling to affected areas.

The virus comes as a huge blow for Hong Kong, which has had to grapple with what has now become annual attacks of a "bird flu," a deadly avian virus that jumped the species barrier to humans in 1997. It infected 18 people, killing 6 of them.

It's not known how that avian H5N1 virus jumped to humans.

Experts say SARS has nothing to do with H5N1, but they have not ruled out the possibility that it could be linked to other bird or animal viruses.

Scientists in Hong Kong say the SARS virus comes from the family of coronaviruses, which causes the common cold.

They say such viruses can originate from animals, although SARS looks nothing like any known human or animal virus.

However, the newspaper said Bi did not believe SARS had anything to do with coronaviruses.

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