China heightened surveillance of passengers for SARS on Saturday
ahead of a week-long holiday starting May 1, when millions are on
the move, after the first reported death from the virus since a
major outbreak last year.
The Health Ministry reported no new case after confirming
China's first two in months on Friday. Both women were in stable
condition with normal temperatures, it said.
Government departments issued a circular asking the country's
transport sector and ports to strengthen quarantine work to prevent
SARS -- Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome -- from spreading.
Railway stations and airports were ordered to check the
temperatures of all passengers from Beijing and Anhui
Province, where the latest cases were reported.
The Labor Day "Golden Week," a break for travel, shopping and
family reunions, was cut short last year during the peak of the
worldwide SARS outbreak for fear of spreading the disease.
The death of a woman from Anhui, the mother of a confirmed SARS
patient, was the first since last year's outbreak of the flu-like
illness that killed more than 800 people worldwide.
She died taking care of her daughter, a medical student believed
to have caught the virus while working for two weeks in March at
the Chinese National Institute of Virology in Beijing, known to be
engaged in SARS research, Xinhua news agency said.
The other confirmed patient was a nurse who treated the student.
The only other suspected case was a post-doctoral researcher who
worked alongside her in the lab.
Three other people who came down with fevers after coming in
contact with her were also recovering.
In Geneva, the World Health Organization (WHO) said China had
requested help from its biosafety investigation team to track down
the exact cause of the latest outbreak.
"A lab team is being sent to determine what happened," WHO
spokesman Dick Thompson said. "If it was a laboratory accident, we
have to find out how it happened, why it happened, and how to
prevent it from happening in the future."
WHO aims to dispatch the global head of its SARS team, Angela
Merianos, to Beijing as it rounds up members for the laboratory
investigation group, Thompson said.
The first phase of clinical testing of a SARS vaccine is soon to
be conducted at a Beijing hospital, Xinhua quoted China's SARS
vaccine research and development team as saying.
Forty healthy volunteers, 20 men and 20 women aged from 21 to
40, would be inoculated either with the vaccine or a placebo free
of the SARS virus for random comparison.
The volunteers would take blood tests at regular intervals and
during an observation period lasting 210 days.
HK airports, checkpoints in normal operation
Airport and checkpoints in Hong Kong are in normal operation
Saturday, which have kept alert against SARS after
the?confirmation of two SARS cases in Chinese mainland.
To cope with the huge influx of visitors expected from
the?China's mainland during the coming holidays from May 1 to
7, Hong?Kong's Immigration Department will deploy an
additional 300?employees to different checkpoints, its
director Lai Tung-kwok?noted.
He said that the department would strictly observe the
health?checks during the holidays.
A spokesman for the Hong Kong International Airport noted that
they have followed the practice of requiring all passengers leaving
Hong Kong by air to fill the health report cards and to have the
body temperatures taken since April last year.
They will introduce new preventive measures if the relevant
health department would suggest any, he said.
After learning the news of two SARS cases in Beijing and in
central Anhui Province, most of the Hong Kong visitors who had
planned a tour to Beijing continued with their journey, with a
small number of them canceling their visits, according to the
Travel Industry Council of Hong Kong.
The government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
announced Friday that it has activated the alert level of the
three-level emergency response system relating to SARS.
An emergency response command structure involving senior
officials from the Health, Welfare and Food Bureau, the Department
of Health and the Hospital Authority has been put in place. It will
monitor the developments closely and decide on
appropriate?actions in anticipation of new developments.
(Xinhua News Agency April 25, 2004)