Hong Kong Battles Fresh Outbreak of Virus

Hong Kong battled on Friday to stop a new hospital outbreak of a highly infectious global virus, while World Health Organization (WHO) experts in southern China tried to nail down the source of the disease.More than 10 staff at Hong Kong’s United Christian hospital have fallen ill with the disease in the last few days, raising fears a new wave of infections was just beginning and the epidemic in the territory was far from being contained. “It’s worrying,” Hong Kong Hospital Authority director Ko Wing-man said of the new outbreak at the hospital, which is treating more than 100 other victims of the disease. Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which has killed 81 people and infected nearly 2,400 worldwide after first showing up in China’s southern province of Guangdong, has triggered precautionary moves in a growing number of countries. Israel is the latest country to allow family members of its consulate staff to leave Hong Kong, a spokeswoman at the consulate told Reuters. It was not clear how many had left. The United States moved on Thursday to offer non-emergency staff and all dependents at its embassy and five consulates in China free flights out on a voluntary basis. Washington had confined such a move only to diplomatic staff in Hong Kong and the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou on Tuesday, but extended that decision to all of China on Thursday. Late on Thursday, Canada announced it would cancel a big medical convention by the American Association for Cancer Research because some doctors, especially those who were caring for SARS patients, feared they could spread the disease. A team from the WHO, which first warned against travel to southern China and Hong Kong because of the disease, is hunting for clues to the source of the virus in Guangdong. Hong Kong’s Cable Television reported on Friday that the Guangdong Disease Control Center now had data showing patients in the early stage of the outbreak were cooks and bird vendors, and that it suspected the virus was linked to animals. Still little is known about SARS. In Hong Kong, scientists are tracing how the latest batch of medical staff got infected, and also the source of a sudden explosion of SARS in one housing estate, where more than 200 residents were infected last week. “We have been briefing staff to take very serious precautions,” said a spokeswoman for the Hospital Authority. Police are also hunting for at least 200 people who had been exposed to the disease but who escaped a quarantine order earlier this week. Officials fear a new outbreak anytime from these people, as a two-to-seven day incubation is now passing. In Australia, three Canadian children were isolated in a hospital with one diagnosed as probably having the disease. The epidemic led to a diplomatic spat between China and New Zealand. Foreign Minister Phil Goff tried to smooth it over, saying the decision to exclude 43 Chinese officials, after they arrived on Wednesday for a conference, was driven by uninformed fears about the virus. Economists are counting the large costs to countries affected by the epidemic. Hong Kong markets remain depressed, and SARS is hitting stocks worldwide in airlines and tourism. Patients brought down by the virus quickly end up in intensive care, and the sheer numbers plus the infectious risk to key medical staff can put an enormous strain on hospitals. In Hong Kong, once-bustling shopping areas are nearly deserted, and expatriates have been leaving, taking their families with them on home leave. Moody’s Investors Service said on Friday the Hong Kong government would miss its 2003/04 budget deficit forecasts because of reduced public consumption due to the outbreak. The death rate from the disease so far has been between three and four percent, but patients in areas without good medical facilities face a much higher mortality risk, doctors say.(Source: Reuters)

Posted On: 7 April, 2003

Modified On: 5 December, 2013