WHO issues global health warning over deadly illness

THE World Health Organisation has warned that a highly contagious and deadly pneumonia-like illness of unknown cause is fast becoming a worldwide health threat.

The illness also claimed another victim a nurse who died in Vietnam.

In a rare "emergency travel advisory", the health agency said it has received more than 150 reports of what it called "Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome" (SARS) in the past week, mostly in Southeast Asia.

At least four people have died this month an American businessman, a Vietnamese nurse who treated him and two people who arrived in Canada recently from Hong Kong.

In southern China's Guangdong province between November and mid-February an outbreak of pneumonia with similar symptoms killed five people and left more than 300 feeling grossly unwell.

It was not immediately known if the previous Chinese outbreak was caused by the same strain as the most recent cases.

"Health officials around the world are taking this situation very seriously," US Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said on Saturday. The department was "applying a full-court press to learn more about this outbreak and how it might impact on the United States", Thompson said.

While no formal travel restrictions are in place, US health officials said travellers may wish to postpone non-essential trips to countries at risk.

Health officials are preparing to issue an alert for passengers returning from countries where SARS has been reported.

The growing list of countries reporting cases of the illness include China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Most cases involve medical workers.

The most recent death occurred on Saturday. The victim was a Vietnamese nurse who treated the American businessman who also died of the disease, the French Embassy in Hanoi said.

A doctor believed to be infected was taken off a New York-to-Singapore flight in Germany on Saturday and quarantined.

Two people travelling with him his wife and another doctor were also being held for observation at the Wolfgang Goethe University Clinic in Frankfurt, Germany. In New York, health authorities put hospitals on alert.

Also, a man travelling from the US to Canada is "reported to have developed some respiratory symptoms", said Dr Julie Gerberding, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

Doctors do not know what causes the illness or if it is a bacteria or virus. The potentially fatal illness is believed to spread "person to person" and have an incubation period of two to seven days, Gerberding said.

"There is no evidence to suggest that this can be spread through brief contact or assemblages of large people," Gerberding said.