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A scientist who advises the Government on swine flu is a paid director of a drugs firm making hundreds of millions of pounds from the pandemic. Professor Sir Roy Anderson sits on the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), a 20-strong task force drawing up the action plan for the virus.

World Health Organization experts were being sent to a crowded province in China where SARS is spreading fast, while new research published Wednesday suggests the illness is much more deadly than other respiratory diseases. As the global death toll from SARS approached 500, Russia considered imposing harsh restrictions along its border with China, where experts say the disease has yet to peak. Chinese officials arrested alleged Internet rumor mongers and revoked the licenses of doctors who refused to treat the infection. In Washington, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson said China and the United States would work...

Sars 'among most deadly viruses' British scientists say Sars is much more deadly than many other respiratory diseases particularly for older patients. The finding in The Lancet shows that Sars is killing one in five of Hong Kong patients in hospital. That includes 55% of infected patients over 60. In younger patients, the death rate could be as low as 6.8%. Roy Anderson, epidemiologist at London's Imperial College, said: "That's sadly still very high for a respiratory infection. In other common respiratory infections it is much less than 1% in the vulnerable elderly." But international scientists and agencies point to...

TORONTO/KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Asian health ministers called on Saturday for checks on all departing passengers at airports to halt the spread of SARS, while the World Health Organization said it may consider dropping a bitterly contested travel warning against Toronto. As Toronto recorded its 20th death in its battle against SARS on Saturday, the WHO told Canadian television that it will review Canada's situation on Tuesday on whether to lift the warning against nonessential travel to Canada's biggest city. "There is a chance the advisory could be changed," WHO spokesman Dick Thompson told CBC television. The WHO announced on...

The worldwide SARS death toll continued to climb on Saturday as a leading British expert warned the mortality rate from the mysterious disease could be double that suggested by the World Health Organisation (WHO). Canada recorded its 20th death, a 77-year-old man from Ontario province, casting doubt on official comments that the outbreak is under control. Six deaths in Hong Kong and Singapore's 19th fatality were among 15 fatalities in Asia, bringing the global toll to 292. As US President George W Bush offered to help beat the epidemic in China, where drastic measures are being taken to halt the...

The death rate for Sars could be significantly higher than previously thought, according to an British expert's study into the pneumonia-like virus. The research by Professor Roy Anderson, due to be published in a medical journal next week, is expected to say the virus could kill between 8% and 15% - or one in seven - of those infected. The World Health Organization (WHO) had predicted a death rate of 5% to 6% and said the virus could be beaten if countries worked together to stop it spreading. A WHO spokesman said Professor Anderson was a top class professional and...

BERLIN--As the case toll climbed steadily toward 4000 earlier this week, scientists chasing the SARS outbreak conceded that their hopes for eradicating the disease were fading. Instead, they are asking how far and how fast severe acute respiratory syndrome will spread and whether it can be contained in relatively small outbreaks. At this point, epidemiologists say they simply don't know. "It does seem unlikely that containment measures are going to succeed in driving this virus to extinction," says epidemiologist David Earn of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, who is working on mathematical models of the outbreak. "If that's the case,...

The death rate for Sars could be significantly higher than previously thought, an expert study into the pneumonia-like virus is expected to suggest. The research by a British scientist, due to be published in a medical journal next week, is expected to say the virus could kill between 8% and 15% - or one in seven - of those infected. The World Health Organization (WHO) is currently predicting a death rate of 5% to 6% and has insisted the virus could still be beaten if countries worked together to stop it from spreading. The WHO said its estimate was more...

SARS much more deadly than first estimated 13:43 25 April 03 NewScientist.com news service Analysis of the latest statistics on the global SARS epidemic reveals that at least 10 per cent of people who contract the new virus will die of the disease. The low death rates of about four per cent cited until now by the World Health Organization and others are the result of a statistical difficulty, well known to epidemiologists, that hampers the early analysis of new disease outbreaks. This difficulty is the reason for the apparent rise in death rate - not a change in the...

Anatomy of the deadly China syndrome Virus Sars is first of many epidemics to come Ian Sample, science correspondent Friday April 25, 2003 The Guardian We're unsure where it came from, have no treatment for it and no idea when or where it will spread next. The virus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome is shrouded in unknowns. But two things are agreed upon: it's lethal, and it's not going to go away. What's more, we can look forward to far more new and extremely dangerous viruses in the next few years. In mid-February, a retired Chinese doctor, Liu Jianlun,...

A plague on our planet... for ever (Filed: 07/05/2003) The Sars epidemic is just the first of many health scares waiting for us in a highly mobile, densely populated 21st century, say scientists. It is vital that we learn all we can about managing such outbreaks as well as fighting them with technology. Roger Highfield reports Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome is only the beginning. We are set to see many more epidemics sweep across the planet in the coming decades, turning the 21st century into the era of the quarantine and face mask. At risk: one reason deadly pathogens will...