Crucial SARS search widens

HONG KONG — Investigators from the World Health Organisation were preparing to head into rural areas of China yesterday amid fears of a SARS epidemic in the countryside.

HONG KONG — Investigators from the World Health Organisation were preparing to head into rural areas of China yesterday amid fears of a SARS epidemic in the countryside.Four WHO experts will visit Hebei, a province of 67 million neighbouring Beijing. The number of SARS infections in Hebei has more than doubled to 134 in the past week and there are fears that thousands of workers returning home from Beijing will take the virus with them. The WHO has said China holds the key to halting the spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which has left nearly 500 dead and infected more than 6900 in 30 countries since it emerged in southern China last November. Since China’s Government admitted covering up the severity of its SARS epidemic on April 20, the country’s efforts to combat the disease have focused largely on Beijing. Almost 18,000 people are now under quarantine in the capital, which has seen 110 deaths from SARS and more than 2000 infections, out of nationwide totals of 219 and 4560 respectively. China’s Premier Wen Jiabao said authorities were now turning their attention to other regions. “At present there has not been a large epidemic in the rural areas, but we must be on high alert, neglecting prevention work in the rural regions will not be tolerated,” Mr Wen was quoted by official media as saying. “The basic rural medical facilities are weak, technical capabilities are not adequate (and) the epidemic surveillance system is not sound.” WHO expert James Maguire said teams would travel to Hebei province before heading to Guangxi and Henan. “We are going at a crucial time because it is absolutely necessary that the proper health procedures are in place in these areas if SARS should break out,” Mr Maguire said. Fear of SARS in China’s rural areas has already taken root. Up to 500 villagers who believed a SARS patient was being transferred to their hospital overturned an ambulance and stoned the facility, officials said yesterday. The incident, on April 28, happened near Chengde city 180 km north of Beijing after a migrant worker returned home and developed SARS symptoms. In Hong Kong, 11 more people were reported to have died yesterday. Some 204 people have now succumbed from 1654 infections. Singapore, another of the worst hit areas with 27 deaths, was buoyed after the US Centres for Disease Control lifted its advisory against non-essential travel. THE first “almost certain” case of the SARS virus in Russia has been detected in a hospital in the country’s far east, bordering China, the Gazeta daily reported yesterday, quoting the health ministry’s chief medic Gennadi Onishchenko. The condition of Denis Soynikov, 25, in hospital in the town of Blagoveshchensk, was described as “grave”. Mr Onishchenko said: “The results of diagnostic tests indicate that it is probably an atypical pneumonia.”(Source: Herald Sun, 09may03)