SARS death toll hits 100 and rising

Deaths worldwide from severe acute respiratory syndrome reached at least 100 today, as the main casualty China revealed that fatalities have been much more widespread than it had previously reported.

Hong Kong said it was bracing for a dramatic leap in SARS cases. Its health officials are preparing for as many as 3,000 patients, up from 700 now.

Officials in Singapore were considering installing Web cameras in the homes of people under quarantine to make sure they don’t leave and Vietnam said it may bar visitors from countries with the mysterious flu-like disease.

A 78-year-old woman died in Hong Kong – the 100th death worldwide since the disease was first detected five months ago. New deaths were also reported in China and Singapore. More than 2,400 people have been sickened globally.

Medical experts in Japan confirmed that none of the country’s suspected cases tested positive for the virus, but the government still has ordered local authorities to draw up plans for coping with an outbreak.

China, which with Hong Kong has been hardest hit by SARS, disclosed Monday that its official toll of 53 includes areas where fatalities previously hadn’t been reported.

State television said there has been one death each in the Chinese provinces of Shanxi in the north, Sichuan in the west and Hunan in central China. The report didn’t say when they occurred, and the Health Ministry press office said it had no more details.

The new disclosures by China come after mounting criticism at home and abroad that the communist government was too slow to release information about SARS.

In New Delhi, World Health Organisation director-general Gro Harlem Brundtland joined in, saying “it would have been much better if the Chinese government had been more open in the early stages.”

Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong called off a trip to China to meet the country’s new leadership because of the SARS outbreak there.

Premier League side Everton also said it was cancelling its May 23-25 tour of China and Hong Kong.

“The simple truth is that we could not take the risk of exposing anyone, be they players, officials or supporters, to the possibility of infection by the SARS virus,” Everton spokesman Ian Ross said.

A Finnish official of the UN International Labour Organisation died in a Beijing hospital yesterday.

The Beijing ILO office was sealed today, and a New Zealand government visa office in the same building was closed as a precaution.

In southern China, a WHO team of investigators in hard-hit Guangdong province were looking into whether the disease might have come from animals on farms or in the wild.

There have been 43 deaths in Guangdong, where officials say the world’s first known case of SARS occurred in November.

Dr Robert Breiman, leader of the four-member WHO team, said they met local animal-health officials and discussed both farm animals and wildlife, including pigs, ducks, bats, rodents, chickens and other birds.

Experts have linked SARS to a new form of coronavirus, other forms of which usually are found in animals.

That link “may suggest that it originates from animals,” Breiman said. However, he said, “the discussions today were inconclusive, so we really don’t have clues.”

In Hong Kong, where SARS has killed 23 people, there are fears the health system could be stretched beyond its limits.

Dr. Lo Wing-lok, an infectious disease expert, said Hong Kong’s hospitals can only handle about 1,500 SARS patients.

But the chairman of the Hospital Authority Dr. Leong Che-hung says Hong Kong will be capable of taking care of up to 3,000 SARS patients by the end of April.

In Vietnam, which has suffered four deaths, a Health Ministry official said the government was considering barring visitors from SARS-affected countries. But the official said the proposal was unlikely to be adopted because of its potential damage to tourism.

Singapore, where eight people have died, was also weighing more drastic measures to curb the spread of the disease.

“We are thinking of installing Webcams in the houses of people under home quarantine and at certain times of the day, they will have to report to the Webcam,” said health minister Lim Hng Kiang.

There are currently 133 people still under quarantine in the city-state.

The Indonesian government said it has stopped sending migrant workers to Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and Malaysia because of fears they might contract SARS.

In Canada, health officials reported an additional death, raising its death toll to nine. They said the patient died in Toronto, where all Canadian fatalities have occurred, and the patient’s relatives were now quarantined.