Taipei subway forms new front against SARS

THE subway system in Taiwan’s capital became a new front in the war against SARS yesterday as a top Chinese Communist Party official called for “total victory” against the disease.

Elsewhere, an AIDS researcher said the SARS virus seems to attack human cells in a manner akin to HIV, which may offer clues for finding the best treatment against the recently discovered illness.

Meanwhile, the first case of the disease in Finland has been confirmed by a hospital in the town of Aabo, Finnish news agency FNB said.

A young Finn was admitted to the hospital at the end of last month with symptoms of the disease after a trip to Toronto, Canada, but it is not known if he is the SARS patient.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder went ahead with a Southeast Asian tour despite concerns about the disease, but the delegation accompanying him was cut from 120 to 30. Schroeder flew to Malaysia yesterday.

Worldwide, SARS has killed at least 534 people and infected more than 7,300 people in over 25 countries, including 12 new cases and one death reported yesterday in Taiwan.

In a tough new restriction, all subway passengers in the Taiwanese capital of Taipei now must wear medical masks.

When the measure came into force yesterday, the usual din of conversation on trains was absent as masked people sat quietly.

Many wore baseball hats, apparently hoping to get extra protection against the virus.

At train depots, cleaners scrubbed hand rails of cars with bleach-dipped cloths.

Taiwan also is installing video cameras to keep watch over about 8,000 people quarantined in their homes in case they have contracted severe acute respiratory illness.

SARS has killed 19 people, including a nurse yesterday, and infected 184 in Taiwan, where the transmission pattern is described as high by WHO.

In Beijing, optimistic officials say the capital's outbreak is waning.

However, the city's Communist Party secretary talked tough after the World Health Organisation complained about holes in patient data.

"We can't allow the slightest relaxation in the fight against SARS in May," the party's People's Daily newspaper quoted Liu Qi as saying.

He ordered officials to "make utmost efforts to fight Beijing's May battle against SARS and obtain total victory in the work of SARS prevention."

The warnings came as China announced five new deaths and 69 cases yesterday the lowest one-day increase in new infections in weeks.

New infection rates have dropped dramatically in Beijing in recent days, but WHO says it is too early to declare that its outbreak has peaked.

It says Beijing health authorities can't explain how about half of its more than 2,200 SARS patients caught the virus an omission in data that hinders attempts to fight its spread.

Wen Jiabao, who ranks third in the party lineup, was quoted by the official Xinhua News Agency as telling officials to redouble efforts against the disease, warning of unseen "channels of infection".