China shuts hospital over SARS, Canada furious at WHO

China shuts hospital over SARS, Canada furious at WHO

Benjamin Kang Lim, Reuters, Beijing

China sealed off a major Beijing hospital on Thursday, swiftly
implementing a policy of quarantining SARS-affected areas to
contain a disease threatening to erupt across the vast land.

Hours after the World Health Organization advised people
against visiting the city, police took positions around the
1,200-bed Beijing University People's Hospital in the middle of
the night to stop people going in or out.

"No one is allowed to enter or leave," a member of the 2,300-
strong staff told Reuters by telephone. "There are policemen and
security guards standing outside."

The hospital is not one of those set aside to treat SARS
patients but it has at least 60 confirmed or suspected cases
among nurses and doctors.

It was the latest dramatic action by a government that
declared war on Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome last week, five
months after the virus first appeared in the southern Chinese
province of Guangdong and started spreading around the world.

There was outrage in Canada as the WHO added its main city
Toronto to a list of places to avoid because of SARS, in addition
to Beijing, Hong Kong, Guangdong and Shanxi provinces.

"Where did this group come from? Who did they see? Who did
they talk to?" an angry mayor of Toronto, Mel Lastman, asked at a
news conference, referring to the WHO.

"Let me be clear. If it's safe to live in Toronto, it's safe
to come to Toronto. I dare them to be here tomorrow."

Canada has 330 cases of SARS and 16 deaths, most of them in
Toronto, which has a large ethnic Chinese population.

China, which came in for severe criticism last week for not
revealing the extent of the disease at first, took the WHO
warning in its stride.

"We have had very effective cooperation with the WHO and we
hope this kind of cooperation can continue," foreign ministry
spokesman Liu Jianchao said. "At the same time we will diligently
research the relevant recommendations the WHO has made for
preventing and curing the outbreak."

Mainland China has reported 110 of the 262 people killed by
SARS and more than half of the 4,650 infections worldwide.

Beijing, a city of 14 million people, has reported almost 775
SARS cases and 39 deaths and the number of infections is mounting
by scores daily. Shanxi, west of the capital, has about 160 cases
and seven deaths, the government says.

The World Bank said East Asian economies should be able to
weather the disruption caused by SARS, although it would have a
severe short-term effect.

The Paris-based think tank OECD said overall economic fallout
of the SARS crisis for worst-affected countries could be
significant as tourism and retail sectors suffered major blows.

Credit rating agency Fitch lowered the outlook on Hong Kong's
currency to negative from stable because of SARS and the toll it
is taking on business in the former British colony where 109
people have died.

"Now well into its second month and continuing to deteriorate,
the SARS outbreak appears to be depressing economic activity in
Hong Kong dramatically," Fitch said.

Singapore reported another death from SARS overnight, taking
its total to 15 known fatalities and two suspected ones. The
city-state said all visitors entering and leaving will have their
temperature checked at the airport or at land crossings.

"We have to muster all our resolve and resources in order to
fight SARS," Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told
Singapore's parliament.

"Then we can bring the SARS outbreak under control, restore
confidence and get the economy moving. If we fail to do so, and
allow the disease to overwhelm us, the consequences will be
catastrophic."

SARS, a respiratory infection caused by a relative of a common
cold virus, has no sure-fire cure. It is spread by droplets from
sneezing and coughing, but may also be transmitted by touching
objects such as lift buttons.

WHO fears that SARS, with a mortality rate that approaches six
percent, may become a permanent human disease.

Much of that worry focused on China, which admits the
healthcare system is inadequate in the countryside where 70
percent of its 1.3 billion people live.

Premier Wen Jiabao said the consequences of eruptions in rural
China "could be too dreadful to contemplate".