Health experts to visit suspected SARS patients

A TEAM of World Health Organisation (WHO) experts are to visit two suspected SARS patients in a southern Chinese hospital as tourists began canceling trips to disease-hit Guangdong province.

The WHO is hoping to clarify the circumstances that may have led to the infection of a third possible SARS case after China declared a 35-year-old businessman had been hospitalised in Guangzhou with pneumonia-like symptoms.

Little is known about the Guangzhou resident, surnamed Yang, who is undergoing treatment at the No 8 People's Hospital in the capital of Guangdong province.

The Xinhua news agency said yesterday that he had not been in contact with wild animals such as the civet cat, the mongoose relative widely suspected as one possible origin of SARS.

WHO experts were also to question a 20-year-old waitress who last week was identified as a suspected SARS case and is believed to have been exposed to the civet, which is served at the restaurant where she worked.

"We are in the hospital. The aim is to meet and talk with the patients," said WHO spokesman Roy Wadia, who is accompanying the team.

"They will ask questions about what they've done. There is a standard questionnaire what places they've been to, what work, whether they have handled animals."

The two suspected cases remain in a stable condition. China's first confirmed SARS case in six months, a 32-year-old television journalist, was released last Thursday.

Chinese health experts believe the three cases are not connected, although the WHO is awaiting results of tests sent to its affiliate laboratories in Hong Kong for independent confirmation.

"Obviously we want the work done as quickly as possible but it could take several days as is the case when you're looking for answers with a high degree of certainty," said Bob Dietz, another WHO spokesman.

China and the WHO are battling to prevent another outbreak of the sometimes fatal respiratory disease that last year provoked a global health crisis, killing nearly 800 among 8,000 infections in 31 countries.

There is particular concern about SARS in Guangdong, where the illness first appeared in November 2002 before causing 349 deaths from 5,237 infections nationwide, as well as devastating sectors of China's economy.

While Guangdong officials have urged the public not to panic, indications that the latest scare could also have a knock-on effect emerged yesterday with Beijing travel agencies canceling all tours to the popular province.

Tours to the capital of Guangzhou as well as the Guangdong cities of Shenzhen and Zhuhai and other areas have been brought to a halt due to the three cases, the Beijing Times said.

China came under fire for its poor handling of SARS last year, but authorities along with the global health body have been racing to unravel the mystery of this year's cases.

With China's major holiday, the Spring Festival, rapidly approaching, Guangdong officials have carried out a week-long slaughter of civet cats in a bid to stem the spread of the disease.

At the same time the government has ordered a campaign to exterminate rats. The rodents are suspected transmitters of SARS, and the city's health department was setting up dead rat collection boxes on main streets that will serve as temporary disposal units.