MSNBC 1/9/04 - WHO: More SARS scares to come; Brigitte Bardot criticizes civet slaughter

[Guest guest]

>Many more suspected SARS cases are likely to emerge because the

>symptoms match those of common winter diseases, the World Health

>Organization said on Friday as it investigated the latest case to

>surface in China.

>http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3916399/

 

 

WHO: More SARS scares to come

Other suspected cases likely to emerge, officials warn

 

Updated: 12:19 p.m. ET Jan. 09, 2004

 

GUANGZHOU - Many more suspected SARS cases are likely to emerge

because the symptoms match those of common winter diseases, the World

Health Organization said on Friday as it investigated the latest case

to surface in China.

 

advertisementA 20-year-old waitress in Guangzhou, capital of

Guangdong province, is suspected of having deadly Severe Acute

Respiratory Syndrome. Her case surfaced days after China confirmed

its first SARS infection since last year.

 

Health authorities have been worrying for months about the

reappearance of SARS this winter. The disease has the same symptoms,

including a relentless fever and dry cough, as several other

respiratory diseases.

 

" Some of these diseases may also give rise to atypical pneumonia. It

is likely that numerous other suspected (SARS) cases will be reported

over the coming weeks, " the WHO said on its Web site.

 

The WHO has sent a team of four doctors to Guangzhou to investigate

the disease, particularly its transmission. A spokesman said their

investigation would be sweeping, with all possibilities considered.

 

" We're on alert anyway, " team spokesman Roy Wadia told Reuters on

Friday. " You get one case and you have to keep watching out for

possible others. "

 

SARS first appeared in southern China in late 2002 and killed about

800 people worldwide last year, nearly 350 of them in China.

 

Lessons learned

A Guangzhou health expert said he did not believe SARS would

re-emerge on the scale of last year.

 

" I do not think the confirmed case means that SARS will return on a

large scale, " Zhong Nanshan, head of the Guangzhou Respiratory

Illness Research Institute, was quoted in the media as saying.

 

" To say it will trigger the huge spread of SARS is absurd. "

 

The China Daily newspaper said in an editorial the country had

learned its lesson from last year, when it first covered up the

extent of the disease. " Transparency breeds confidence, " it said.

 

Investors appeared to agree. China's shares rose on Thursday and

Friday, with analysts saying worries about SARS had not hurt trade,

as it did last year.

 

The suspected case of the waitress follows confirmation of SARS in a

32-year-old Guangzhou TV producer, the country's first case since the

world outbreak was declared over in July. He has since recovered and

left hospital on Thursday.

 

His case has been linked to a coronavirus very similar to one found

in civet cats, a weasel-like animal prized as a delicacy in southern

China and sold in crowded markets.

 

INTERACTIVE

* New diseases

Where do they come from?With the re-emergence of SARS, the government

banned sale of the animals and has been carrying out a mass slaughter.

 

The TV producer said he had not eaten civet. The source of his

infection remains a mystery, complicating the larger question whether

the virus had begun to spread again.

 

The seafood restaurant where the waitress is believed to have worked

was also famous for its civet cat, a neighbour said.

 

" Before SARS, they sold civet cats in the open and at night the cars

would line up, " said a local seal-carver. " Then once SARS came, they

stopped selling them. In recent months, they've been selling them

under the table. "

 

'Very vigilant'

Two members of a Hong Kong television crew tested negative for SARS

following their return to Hong Kong on December 30 with fevers after

they and a colleague visited an animal market and the hospital where

the producer had been treated.

 

A Hong Kong government spokesman said test results on the third were pending.

 

The SARS scare is emerging just before the Lunar New Year holidays,

when an estimated 1.89 billion journeys are expected to be made by

rail, road, ship and air around China and in the region.

 

Dr Julie Gerberding, head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention, said much work remained to identify the precise source of

SARS.

 

" We may not ever be able to identify it, " Gerberding said.

 

" What we are seeing in China is a very vigilant health system that is

doing exactly what it should be doing, " Gerberding said.

 

But French actress turned animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot

protested against the civet cat slaughter.

 

" The eradication methods these animals are put through are

unacceptable, " Bardot said in an open letter to Chinese President Hu

Jintao. " No scientific research has yet identified which species is

the first to have caught the virus. "

 

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