Killer bug spreads as experts hunt clues to origin

A deadly pneumonia-like virus has claimed more victims in a growing number of countries as experts from the World Health Organisation race to trace the origins of the highly infectious disease in southern China.

British public health experts yesterday reported a fifth probable case of the deadly Sars (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) virus, a man who returned from Taiwan last month.

It was the second suspected case of the illness in the country in as many days. Earlier, the Health Protection Agency said a woman who was being treated for the illness in a hospital in northern England was improving.

"There is a fifth case," an agency spokeswoman said. The man, who returned to Britain on March 29 and was admitted to hospital on Saturday, was in isolation as a precautionary measure. His condition was stable.

"I don't think that there should be any concern that we have had two cases in two days. It just underpins that we have good surveillance in this country," the spokeswoman said.

China, which has been criticised for having been too slow to acknowledge the disease and warn its neighbours, said yesterday its death toll from the virus had climbed to 51 with 1,247 infections as of April 5.

A Finnish man died in Beijing from the virus yesterday, taking the number of deaths in China's capital to four, a health official said. Pekka Aro, 53, arrived in Beijing from Thailand on March 23 to attend an international labour conference.

Premier Wen Jiabao, whose administration is grappling with its first big crisis since taking office in March, said China could control the spread of the disease, and welcomed visitors.

"The Chinese government and people warmly welcome friends worldwide to come to our country for tourism, visits or to engage in commercial activities," the official Xinhua news agency quoted Wen as saying.

In the southern Chinese territory of Hong Kong, where the disease has killed 22 people and tourists are cancelling trips, an infected man barricaded himself at home in a standoff with police, but surrendered and was taken to hospital yesterday.

Police were still hunting for six families exposed to the disease who fled their apartment block before it was quarantined last week.

More than 100 other families who fled from the same block have turned themselves in after authorities appealed urgently that they seek medical help.

Health officials believe everyone in the building in Kowloon, one of the most densely populated places on the planet, may have been infected and could have spread the disease.

In China's Guangdong province, the epicentre of the explosion of Sars a team of WHO investigators compared notes with Chinese experts for the third day in a bid to track down the the origin of the virus.

No details of the talks were immediately available, but not everyone in Hong Kong was convinced the Chinese authorities would turn over all their information.

"They might get something if they are clever," said Terrence Tsai, a professor of business at the Chinese University in Hong Kong, referring to the WHO teams. "The Chinese only let you know what they want you to know. They're very good at hiding data."

Air travellers took the virus to 18 countries after it spread in Hong Kong. It has infected more than 2,600 people since emerging in southern China in November and killed more than 90.

"Sure, I'm still afraid," Tsai said. "First, there's no vaccine to cure it. Second, the means of transmission is still unclear."

Canada, with the highest number of infected people after mainland China and Hong Kong, said the disease killed its eighth victim in Toronto and a ninth death is being investigated.

Malaysia reported its first death from the virus on Saturday, though the 64-year-old man had died a week before. The official Bernama news agency said the government has vowed not to cover up any cases.

The biggest hospital in neighbouring Singapore, which has 106 infections, the world's fourth-highest tally, started screening visitors after 20 of its nurses and a doctor were suspected of catching the virus.

A doctor at Singapore General Hospital was confirmed to be infected, raising fears of a crack in the city state's strategy of isolating infected people.

Symptoms include a fever above 38 degrees Celsius, aches, coughing and breathing difficulty. SARS has a mortality rate of about four per cent, less than the flu, but most of those infected develop severe pneumonia requiring weeks of hospitalisation and treatment with strong anti-viral drugs.

WHO and Hong Kong experts say the virus spreads through droplets by sneezing or coughing and such direct infection can usually occur within a radius of about three feet (one metre).

But health experts have not ruled out that it could be airborne, which dramatically raises the contagious nature of the virus and would make it far harder to contain.

Some Hong Kong doctors have warned the rapid spread of the disease has thrown the health care system into crisis. About 800 people have been infected in the territory, many of them doctors and nurses in public hospitals.

Some doctors, fearful of catching SARS, were turning away common flu patients and sending them to overstretched hospitals.

"If there's no change in the distribution of resources, no contingency plan, we can assume that overall the Hospital Authority can look after 1,500 SARS patients," Dr Lo Wing-lok, president of the Hong Kong Medical Association, said yesterday.

Lo said a network of private doctors was being set up to improve screening of suspected patients in clinics. He urged the government to throw more resources into battling the disease.

"I don't like to use the word crisis. But it is true that the health care system of Hong Kong is facing a lot of stress," Lo told reporters at a news briefing.

The epidemic is also hitting struggling Asian economies. In Hong Kong, where tourism makes up about six per cent of the economy, 22 per cent of flights were cancelled yesterday, similar to Saturday's level, as travellers cancelled their plans.

Chinese doctors said they had found evidence of a very common microbe, chlamydia pneumoniae, in some of the SARS patients and suggested that this might be the main suspect.

But the head of the Centre of Disease Control Dr. James Hughes said he does not think the chlamydia, a common cause of pneumonia as well as sexually transmitted infections, plays a role in the current SARS outbreak.

Some Hong Kong doctors said the main suspect may be a new strain of coronavirus, best known as a cause of the common cold. Evidence of coronavirus had been found by 11 different labs in several SARS patients.