Posted on 04/29/2003 7:09:47 AM PDT by InShanghai
BEIJING/BANGKOK (Reuters) -
China reported nine more SARS deaths and more than 200 new cases on Tuesday as Asian heads of government gathered to fight an outbreak that has killed hundreds, curbed travel and threatened economic growth.
The Chinese Health Ministry said seven of the new deaths were in Beijing, the hardest hit place in the world, along with 152 of the latest cases.
The WHO's chief of communicable diseases, David Heymann, in Bangkok to brief and advise the Asian leaders, told Reuters on the eve of the summit that China was key to containing Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).
China has reported 148 SARS deaths and more than 3,300 cases, and health experts suspect the actual tally in China could be far higher.
Leaders of the 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) will be encouraged by a World Health Organization (news - web sites) assessment that the virus with no known cure appears to have peaked in Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam and Canada.
But with the disease still on the rise in China, ASEAN is keen to get the help of Premier Wen Jiabao to enforce strict new measures including pre-departure checks at airports and ports across the region.
Responding to criticism that China had not disclosed fully its SARS problem, Wen told reporters in Bangkok: "I have come to face reality and the world bravely. Please believe the government and people of China."
NO BLANKET BANS
Among measures announced on Tuesday, China is to shut its stock exchanges from May 1 to 9 and to ban oversees travelers from SARS-free Tibet. ASEAN leaders will hold a two-hour summit before meeting Wen and Hong Kong Chief Executive Tung Chee-Hwa.
"By reaching across borders for common solutions, ASEAN is projecting the strong message that we are prepared to close ranks with the world to fight this threat to the end," Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (news - web sites) said.
The WHO issued a global alert on March 15 about SARS, which has already infected more than 5,500 people in nearly 30 countries and killed more than 330.
ASEAN leaders, afraid SARS may batter their key tourism industries, are expected to rubber stamp a deal brokered by health ministers over the weekend to resist blanket bans on travelers from any country.
ASEAN groups Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, Myanmar, Malaysia, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Brunei.
Taiwan is the only place to have imposed such a ban, deciding to close its borders to visitors from China, Hong Kong, Canada and Singapore for two weeks and quarantine residents returning from those places.
WHO has slapped travel advisories on Beijing and other parts of China, including Hong Kong, and Toronto.
STOCK MARKETS BUOYED
Taiwan's cabinet approved a US$1.43 billion fund to combat SARS giving financial markets a shot in the arm on Tuesday, but analysts said more was needed to cure the island's economic ills.
Other Asian stock markets scored their biggest gains since the run-up to the Iraq (news - web sites) war, as battered airline shares surged on hopes the SARS outbreak had peaked.
But Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (news - web sites), said it was too early to declare victory in Vietnam, Hong Kong, Singapore and Canada.
"Because this is an epidemic that we're still in the evolution of it and it really could be unpredictable," Fauci said in a CNBC interview.
"Clearly China still has things out of control. It's a very serious situation in China."
Singapore also said it was too early to say its outbreak had peaked as hospitals nationwide turned away visitors to try to curb the disease.
Singapore, coping with the world's fourth-highest number of infections of SARS, has gone two straight days without a new case, raising hope that tough government measures have contained the illness.
WHO's Heymann told a news conference in Bangkok late on Monday that fear of SARS should not prevent people from traveling. He said there was evidence of only five incidents of transmission on aircraft, although millions of people have flown since the disease was first detected.
"SARS is having an unnecessary negative impact on economies, tourism and trade due in part to a discrepancy between the real and the perceived threat," Heymann said. "This disease does not spread easily."
Scientists say the virus is mainly passed by droplets through sneezing and coughing.
The Asian Development Bank on Monday cut its growth forecast for Asia this year to 5.3 percent, from the 5.6 percent expected in December, due to the impact of SARS and an uncertain global economic recovery.
Mongolia confirmed its first two SARS cases on Tuesday and said four other people in the impoverished north Asian nation had probably been infected.
Highlighting deepening public fear as China fails to check the spread of the disease, residents of a town near Beijing rioted after learning of a plan to set up a SARS quarantine center in an abandoned school, officials said on Tuesday.
The riot erupted on Sunday in the township of 32,500 people about 45 miles southeast of Beijing, a local government official said. He declined to elaborate, or to say how many people took part in the riot or how it was resolved.
Excerpt:
Migrant workers and students who have fled this city almost certainly have taken the disease with them to their homes across China. A few hundred SARS cases have emerged in provinces outside of Beijing and Guangdong.
The ramshackle health care services in China's impoverished interior could be swamped if the disease multiplies in the provinces as it has in the capital.
The Chinese mainland reported 202 new severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) cases between 10:00 a.m. of April 28 and 10:00 a.m. of April 29, according to the Ministry of Health Tuesday.
In the same period 16 patients were discharged from hospitals upon recovery and nine died, said the ministry's information office.
The cumulative SARS cases on the Chinese mainland rose to 3,303 as of 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday, said the ministry.
From 10:00 a.m. April 28 to 10:00a.m. April 29, Beijing reported 152 new SARS cases and seven deaths from the disease, the Ministry of Health said.
The number of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) cases in Beijing totaled 1,347 as of 10:00 a.m. April 29.
Of the SARS patients in the Chinese capital, 83 have been discharged from hospitals upon recovery and 66 have died, the information office of the ministry said.
Of these figures:
Beijing reported 152 new cases, 5 patients recovered and 7 deaths. Of the 152 cases, 49 used to be suspected cases and now are confirmed as SARS patients;Tianjin reported 1 new case; Hebei reported 9 new cases, 1 death; Shanxi reported 23 new cases, 1 patient recovered; Inner Mongolia reported 7 new cases, 1 death; Anhui reported 1 new case; Henan reported 1 new case; Guangdong reported 4 new cases, and 10 recovered; Guangxi reported 1 new case; Shaanxi reported 3 new cases.
By 10 am of April 29, China had a total of 3,303 SARS cases (including 709 medical workers), which included 1,322 patients who had recovered and been discharged from hospital and 148 deaths. Beijing reported 4 patients (including 1 medical worker) who had been falsely diagnosed with SARS. Inner Mongolia had one case reported twice Monday, so the repeated case was removed in Tuesday's report.
From 10 am of April 28 to 10 am of April 29, China also reported 321 new suspected cases, including 149 from Beijing, 8 from Tianjin, 12 from Hebei, 49 from Shanxi, 30 from Inner Mongolia, 2 from Liaoning, 1 from Shanghai, 1 from Jiangsu, 1 from Anhui, 3 from Henan, 2 from Hubei, 1 from Hunan, 54 from Guangdong, 2 from Chongqing, 4 from Sichuan, 1 from Shaanxi, and 1 from Gansu. By 10 am of April 29, China had a total of 2,259 suspected cases.
I wonder what the requirements are for being 'recovered and discharged'. It seems to me the hospital stays are much shorter in Mainland China...
What is news is the effect this health crisis is having on Chinese society and their economy.
The number of new cases is 200. Cases in China are growing. I wonder if one day we'll be seeing headlines like 'China reports 1,234 new cases today'.
The link in post #2 is an interesting read for a feel on what it's like in Beijing.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.