Virus spreads in HK

A deadly respiratory virus has spread to two more densely populated parts of Hong Kong, and a top health official warned yesterday cockroaches might be spreading the disease.

In Singapore, air force paramedics have joined the battle against Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and the government said internet-linked cameras might be used to enforce home quarantine orders.

But in China's Guangdong province, where SARS first emerged, officials said the rate of new infections was down sharply and the outbreak was under control.

At least 103 people have died worldwide from SARS and 2,750 have been infected in about 20 countries - nearly half of them in China.

At least three more people died in Beijing from SARS than officially reported, doctors in the Chinese capital said yesterday, as fears spread and hospitals disclosed suspected cases not previously revealed.

"It's impossible there are only 19 SARS cases in Beijing," said a doctor at the Beijing University number one Hospital. "There are no beds left in our epidemic ward."

Beijing has reported 19 cases and four deaths out of 1,279 infections and 53 deaths nationwide, most of them in Guangdong, where the virus first appeared last November.

More than 40 people in Hong Kong's Ngau Tau Kok district in Kowloon and Tuen Mun in the New Territories caught the disease in the last 10 days, said a health department spokesman and a district lawmaker in Tuen Mun, raising fears it is far from contained.

Two more deaths and 45 new infections were reported yesterday in Hong Kong, where the disease has already killed 25.

Deputy Director of Health Leung Pak-yin told a radio programme cockroaches might have carried infected waste from sewage pipes into apartments in a huge housing complex, Amoy Gardens, which has had a quarter of the city's 928 infections.

If proved true, it would represent an alarming development in the swiftly spreading epidemic in Hong Kong, a city of seven million people filled with densely populated apartment blocks.

Doctors believe the virus is spread through droplets by sneezing and coughing or by direct contact. If it can be carried by cockroaches it would be even harder to contain.

Hong Kong has the second highest number of infections in the world outside of mainland China, where SARS first emerged.

"The drainage may be the reason. It is possible that the cockroaches carried the virus into the homes," Leung said.

The speed of the outbreak has baffled health officials in both Hong Kong and Singapore.

SARS has infected staff at five of Singapore's six main public hospitals. The government reported one more death and five new cases yesterday, taking the toll so far to nine and the number of infections to 118.

Another 82 are suspected to have the disease. The new cases come after the government imposed strict measures ranging from home quarantine to sweeping school closures to try to curb an illness spread by air travellers.

The government has quarantined hundreds exposed to the disease, ordering them to stay at home.

Health Minister Lim Hng Kiang said Internet-linked "webcams" might be installed to enforce the quarantine orders some people broke home quarantine, despite the threat of a fine of S$2,000 to S$10,000 (US$1,125 to US$5,624).

"At certain times of the day they will have to report to the webcam," he said.

Huang Qingdao, director of the provincial health department of Guangdong in southern China, told a news conference the rate of new infections in April had slowed to 7.5 per day from about 12 in March. That compared to around 40 new cases reported daily in Hong Kong.

"From this, we can see that atypical pneumonia in Guangdong has been effectively controlled," Huang said. "Our preventative measures have been effective. This is clear. It has especially been the case in Guangzhou."

Just a week after the World Health Organisation took the unprecedented step of urging travellers to avoid Hong Kong and south China, the mood on the streets of Guangzhou, the largest city in Guangdong, was almost carefree.

On trendy Beijing Road, crowds strolled about on a spring day with hardly a surgical mask in sight, a sharp contrast to nearby Hong Kong where they have become a fact of life.

The attitude reflects - and could well be the product of - the government line that the disease peaked in February, right around Lunar New Year, and has been on the way out ever since.

"We're attentive, but not afraid," said Lu Li, one of many shoppers on Beijing Road, where shops boast names like Baleno, Diamesco, CoCo and the inevitable McDonald's.

"I wash my hands more and won't use communal towels. It's also best not to use communal chopsticks," Lu added, tossing away a snack box and pulling out a tissue to wipe her hands and face.

The disease has a mortality rate of about four per cent, far lower than influenza. Patients can quickly develop severe pneumonia which can require weeks in hospital.

Health officials are also looking at the possibility that SARS can be spread by a latter-day version of Typhoid Mary, a cook in early 20th century America who spread typhoid fever without showing symptoms herself.

SARS symptoms include high fever, chills and breathing difficulties and doctors think the virus is spread through droplets by sneezing and coughing or by direct contact.