WHO to fight SARS outbreak in China

WORLD Health Organisation experts were being sent to a crowded province in China where SARS is spreading fast, while research published yesterday suggests the illness is much more deadly than other respiratory diseases.

As the global death toll from SARS approached 500, Russia considered imposing harsh restrictions along its border with China, where experts say the disease has yet to peak.

Chinese officials arrested alleged internet rumour mongers and revoked the licenses of doctors who refused to treat the infection.

In Washington, US Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson said China and the United States would work closer on SARS, although a senior Chinese official was non-committal about providing US scientists with patients' specimens.

The US government has authorised immigration and customs inspectors at US airports to use force to detain passengers who appear to have SARS symptoms, The New York Times reported yesterday.

None had been detained so far, it said.

New findings in The Lancet medical journal show that SARS is killing one in five of patients hospitalised with the virus in hard-hit Hong Kong, including 55% of infected patients aged over 60.

In younger patients, the death rate could be as low as 6.8%.

"That's sadly still very high for a respiratory infection," said Roy Anderson, the epidemiologist at London's Imperial College who headed the study.

The research, which also involved the University of Hong Kong and Hong Kong health authorities is the first major study of SARS trends but was based only on data from Hong Kong, where at least 203 people have died.

Scientists differ over what the chances are for an average person anywhere dying from it.

Worldwide, the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention puts the death rate at 6.6%.

The World Health Organisation says it ranges from 6% to 10%.

Calculating the death rate has been a sore point for the world's epidemiologists.

Two methods dominate among scientists: The method used by the WHO and CDC is to divide the total number of deaths by the total number of SARS cases.

The second approach involves dividing the deaths by the total of those recovered plus those who died.

Anderson said both methods are deeply flawed and underestimate the death rate because they ignore the fate of people who are still ill.