Posted 1:41 AM by Dr. Kay

Sharp rise in Taiwan SARS cases

TAIPEI (Taiwan) MAY 22. Taiwan reported 65 new SARS infections — the island's biggest daily jump in cases — on Thursday as a U.S. health expert assisting the island developed symptoms of the deadly virus.

The official with the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention reported having a fever and muscle pain — common SARS symptoms — this week while staying at the Sheraton Hotel in Taipei, said Su Yi-jen, chief of the island's Centre for Disease Control.

The man, who wasn't identified, was taken to a hospital for an examination and the hotel was temporarily sealed off, Mr. Su said.

Earlier Thursday, Mr. Su reported 65 new cases — the island's sharpest daily increase. The island now has 483 infections. He also said there were eight more fatalities, raising the death roll to 60.

The official said the sharp increase in cases was largely due to improvements in Taiwan's SARS confirmation process. Mr. Su noted that the WHO and America's CDC have complained that Taiwan had about 400 cases awaiting confirmation and that officials were taking too long to sort out the patients.

Many of the new cases on Thursday were from that backlog, he said. ``We are now at the peak of the new wave, and we're at the stage when we're about to come down,'' he said.

The new numbers were announced one day after the WHO warned travellers to avoid the entire island. Originally, the U.N. health agency only advised people against making non-essential visits to Taiwan's capital, Taipei. Following the WHO's lead, Britain issued a new travel warning about Taiwan, strongly advising its citizens not to go to the island, about 160 km off China's south-eastern coast.

The outbreak has already forced Taiwanese to change their daily routines and cancel several important events. On Thursday, the elite National Taiwan University announced that it called off its June 7 graduation ceremony.

China reopens schools

Meanwhile, in China, thousands of students went back to class on Thursday as Beijing began to reopen public schools that were shut down at the height of the Chinese capital's SARS outbreak.

``I'm really excited to see all my friends again. I can't stop smiling,'' said Qing Zhu (18), who was chatting with a classmate at Beijing No. 80 High School.

School closures on April 24 sent home 1.7 million students. Most spent the past month at home, often in tiny apartments, told by schools not to see classmates to avoid possibly spreading the virus.

Classes for students planning to take university entrance tests resumed on Thursday. Lower grades were to return later. Some schools will stay closed longer, holding classes on the Internet or television.

The measures were part of sweeping efforts to contain SARS in Beijing, the world's hardest-hit area with 156 deaths reported and nearly 2,500 people infected.

Throughout China's mainland, the disease has killed at least 296 people, with more than 5,200 cases reported.

AP

Posted 10:29 AM by Dr. Kay

WHO blames it on leaky pipes, ventilation fans

HONG KONG MAY 16. Leaky sewage pipes and bathroom ventilation fans carried contaminated droplets through parts of a Hong Kong apartment complex, causing one of the world's worst outbreaks of SARS, World Health Organisation investigators said on Friday.

More than 300 people came down with the illness at the Amoy Gardens apartment complex in late March, and 35 people died. The speed of the infection amazed health experts, who at the time believed the disease was spread mainly by person-to-person contact.

Hong Kong reported four new SARS deaths on Friday but only three new infections, the lowest number since officials began releasing daily statistics in March. SARS has now infected 1,706 people here and killed 238.

A report written by a team of WHO investigators blamed an `unlucky' combination of circumstances — a patient with diarrhoea, seeping pipes and drafty air shafts at Amoy Gardens. The findings largely confirm an earlier report by Hong Kong officials.

"It's just an accumulation of events," an official said. There was no way to guarantee against a repeat, but that another such outbreak seems `unlikely', he said. When the WHO investigators went to Amoy Gardens to collect samples, they found no live coronaviruses — the family of virus believed to cause severe acute respiratory syndrome — and no remaining genetic material from the virus, th official said.

The WHO team is still conducting lab tests on samples collected from another housing development, the Tung Tau Estate, that suffered a minor outbreak. Preliminary findings showed the sewage system did not appear to be the cause there, but he did not elaborate. — AP

Out of hospital

BEIJING MAY 16. An Indian citizen, who had to spend over three weeks in isolation in a SARS-only hospital here, was discharged today after recovering from typhoid fever. — PTI