SARS deaths - world toll tops 700
Taiwan announced 12 new deaths from SARS today – taking the world toll to more than 700 – as Toronto geared up for a re-emergence of the disease with fears that 33 people might have it.
Taiwan rejected rival China’s offer to help the island battle SARS and criticised Beijing for blocking it from joining the World Health Organisation.
Taipei announced three new cases of SARS – severe acute respiratory syndrome - today.
But it also added 19 others to its list of people infected with the virus, saying those cases had been misdiagnosed over the past week. This took the island’s total number of infections to 570.
Despite the deaths and new cases, the head of the SARS Control Committee, Lee Min-lingo, claimed that “the illness has been gradually brought under control”.
In Singapore, officials culled stray cats as part of a nationwide clean-up campaign sparked by the SARS crisis, a spokesman said, after researchers in Hong Kong said they found the virus in civet cats – a delicacy eaten by some Chinese.
People in Hong Kong were reportedly abandoning their cats.
World-wide, SARS has killed at least 708 people and infected more than 8,100.
In Toronto, health officials said an apparently undiagnosed SARS case at a hospital might have infected 33 health care workers, other patients and their family members in late April.
“The number (of exposed people) is likely to increase over the next 24-48 hours,” said Hanif Kassam, medical officer of health in York Region north of the city.
Emergency rooms throughout Toronto were immediately put under special restrictions limiting access, and hundreds of people were advised to go into 10-day quarantine.
The new cases were a harsh blow for the Canadian city, which was removed from the World Health Organisation’s list of SARS-affected areas last week after apparently snuffing out what was the biggest outbreak of the illness outside of Asia.
Dr Donald Low, a microbiologist and major figure in Toronto’s anti-SARS efforts, said the new cluster could involve two deaths of elderly patients. If confirmed, they would increase the SARS death rate in the Toronto area to 26.
The US Centres for Disease Control reinstated a travel alert for Toronto, but the WHO said more confirmation of an outbreak was needed before considering such a step.
Hong Kong rejoiced yesterday after the WHO lifted a SARS advisory against non-essential travel to the territory, which has hit its economy hard. But some warned that a full recovery could take time with wary tourists slow to return.
In Beijing, the hardest-hit region in the world, a city spokesman said yesterday that new cases in the city were on a “notable downward trend”, although the Health Ministry later announced a slight rise in numbers of infections.
The southern Chinese province of Guangdong, where SARS is believed to have originated, was also taken off the WHO travel advisory list on Friday.
But the WHO still advises against all non-essential travel to Beijing, and four other Chinese regions, as well as to Taiwan, because of continuing new transmission of SARS.
Beijing offered to send SARS experts and medical supplies to Taiwan, the government’s English-language China Daily reported yesterday.
But Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council turned down the offer.
“We suggest that the Chinese communists keep the medical supplies on the mainland - so the mainland can control its epidemic as soon as possible and to help ease the panic in Taiwan and in the world,” it said in a statement.
Taiwan and China split amid civil war in 1949. Beijing claims the self-governing island as its own territory and objects to Taiwan’s involvement in international organisations.
“If the Chinese authorities are really concerned about Taiwanese - they should no longer interfere with Taiwan’s attempts to participate in the WHO or other international organisations,” it said.
In Malaysia, about 200 navy personnel have been quarantined on their ship after a crew member died with symptoms of SARS, a senior health official said today.
