Cities bid to stem outbreaks

BEIJING city officials told 4,000 people suspected of being exposed to SARS to stay home yesterday, as quarantined medical workers in Taiwan held a rowdy protest and Hong Kong hospitals were accused of failing to protect frontline doctors from the deadly bug.

Countries worldwide were struggling to contain varying outbreaks of the flu-like illness, which has already killed more than 260 and infected more than 4,300.

In the Philippines, officials announced the country's second death from SARS.

This was the father of a Filipino nurse who had worked in Canada and died last week.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo gave authorisation for police to impose quarantines and take other measures against SARS.

The former head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in Hong Kong yesterday that doctors will probably never be able to eradicate SARS, but they should be able to bring down the numbers of infections and deaths.

"What we hope for is a suppression and minimisation," said Dr Jeffrey P Koplan, now vice president of health affairs at Atlanta's Emory University

In Toronto, tourism businesses braced for disaster after the World Health Organisation added the city to a list of countries that people should avoid visiting. Sixteen people have died in Canada, most of them in Toronto.

In Beijing, officials sealed off Ditan Hospital the third medical centre to be closed in the Chinese capital this month.

Mere weeks ago, foreign reporters were taken on tours of the 500-bed facility, which officials considered a showcase of the government's efforts to battle SARS.

The hospital specialises in infectious diseases.

Two days after invoking emergency quarantine powers, Beijing health officials ordered 4,000 people to stay at home because they had "intimate contact" with others showing symptoms.

In the Taiwanese capital of Taipei, about 30 nurses and workers were fed up with being quarantined for two weeks at the Hoping Hospital, which reported 10 probable SARS cases earlier this week.

They complained that confining people could expose healthy staffers to the disease.

"This is ridiculous. Why can't I go home?" yelled a woman with a gauze mask strapped tightly to her mouth.