Asia clamps down as deadly SARS spreads

Asia clamps down as deadly SARS spreads

Tan Ee Lyn and
Jason Szep
Reuters
Hong Kong/Singapore

Singapore slapped a quarantine on arriving foreign workers as
anxiety grew on Thursday over the spread of Severe Acute
Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) virus.

Hong Kong reported three more deaths and officials feared the
illness could spread further through the city's crowded and grimy
tower blocks.

Singapore is trying to pin down the source of an outbreak in
the city's biggest hospital after reporting the largest jump in
cases in a fortnight.

"We are facing an unprecedented situation. We are dealing with
a serious, unseen threat," Singapore's Minister of Manpower, Lee
Boon Yang, said on Thursday.

There are fresh signs SARS is dealing a heavy economic blow
across Asia, hitting hotels, airlines, restaurants, taxi
companies and other services.

As the illness spreads, governments in the region fear slower
economic growth and the long-term damage to Asia's image.

Nine people have died in Singapore of SARS and 126 have been
infected. The government, which has revised down economic growth
forecasts, has imposed sweeping controls, including home
quarantine and school closures.

But the virus has kept spreading and staff in five of the
city's six big public hospitals have now been infected.

On Thursday, the government said it would quarantine new
foreign workers from SARS-afflicted regions such as China, Hong
Kong and Canada for 10 days.

Indonesia, which has one suspected SARS case, said it had
banned 8,000 workers from going to SARS-affected countries.

"I think we have to assume that the virus is in Asia to stay,"
said Dr Jim Hughes, head of infectious diseases at the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Nearly 1,000 people have been infected in Hong Kong and of
these, half live in Kowloon -- the most densely populated place
on the planet.

"Kowloon is the worst disaster area," Fred Li, a legislator
representing the district, said on Thursday.

"The disease is certain to spread. People living here have
children and relatives in the next block or estate and they see
each other all the time. The risk of infection is so high."

Of those infected in Kowloon, almost 300 are from a single
housing estate, Amoy Gardens. More than 40 other people in
neighboring estates, such as Telford Gardens, Ngau Tau Kok and
Lee Kee Building, have fallen ill this week.

Hong Kong's government said on Thursday three more people had
died from SARS, bringing the death toll to 30, while 28 others
had been infected.

China, where SARS surfaced late last year, has the largest
number of cases but officials say the epidemic is under control
and on the wane.

But some doctors have disputed that, with one accusing the
health minister of lying about the number of cases in Beijing.

Worldwide, more than 110 people have died and nearly 3,000
have been infected.

Malaysia on Wednesday banned all tourists from China to try to
stop the spread of the disease and imposed restrictions on
visitors from other places. The Philippines has said it will
discourage travel to Hong Kong and southern China.

Taiwan said two flight attendants had been diagnosed with
SARS, taking the total number of cases in the country to 23.

SARS has no known cure and health officials say they still
don't know exactly how it spreads. Researchers have yet to pin-
point the virus with certainty but believe the main culprit
belongs to a family of viruses that can cause the common cold.

SARS can cause severe pneumonia that cannot be helped by
drugs. About 4 percent of patients die. Officials say the illness
is spread by droplets such as sneezing and coughing.

But Hong Kong health officials say an outbreak in one Kowloon
housing estate, Amoy Gardens, may have been helped by cockroaches
carrying contaminated human waste from sewage pipes back into
apartments.

Many Amoy Gardens residents are too afraid to return to their
cramped apartments.

Air travel has spread the illness around the world. As fear
grows, thousands of people have stopped traveling, crippling
Asia's key tourist industry.

Hong Kong's Airport Authority said on Thursday that 31 percent
of the day's flights, or 163 flights, were canceled due to
dampened demand for air travel because of SARS.

In Singapore, hotel occupancy rates have tumbled by more than
half in three weeks. "This is a problem where people are just
frightened to get on a flight, to travel," said Dinky Puri,
general manager of Singapore's Holiday Inn Park View hotel.

"That to me is a crisis," he said.