Hong Kong battles worldwide fears about SARS virus

Amid fears Hong Kong is allowing a deadly respiratory virus to spread overseas, officials prepared today to check all departing air travellers for fevers as they battled the international perception the city is unsafe.

Authorities are discussing how to take the temperature of every single air passenger leaving Hong Kong, a burden the administration may impose on airlines, said Eva Wong, a Health Department spokeswoman.

About a million people departed from Chek Lap Kok airport in January. Figures for February and March have not been released.

Hong Kong’s economy is reeling from downturns in tourism and consumption due to the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or Sars, which has stricken 1,059 residents, killing 32.

Authorities announce dozens of new cases daily.

Critics say Hong Kong was slow to impose stringent quarantine controls, but authorities are now trying to allay fears and boost the city’s international image, including a territory-wide cleanup, set for next Saturday.

“Hong Kong is a safe place for local residents as well as visitors,” said Christopher Jackson, Hong Kong’s trade representative to Brussels, as he outlined the government’s anti-Sars measures on Friday.

The government announced the airport temperature checks and other measures as Indonesia and the Philippines disclosed on Friday that its first Sars cases had recently visited Hong Kong.

German airline Lufthansa is tracking down fellow passengers of a Hong Kong Sars patient who criss-crossed Europe in early April.

The virus, which has no known cure, is believed to have been spread by air travellers and many nations have imposed strict controls at the airports and ports on passengers arriving from affected countries. Sars is thought to have broken out in southern China and then spread via Hong Kong to at least 18 other countries.

The World Health Organisation has advised against travel to the former British colony, as well as the Chinese mainland, and individual countries have imposed their own restrictions, with Malaysia barring most Hong Kong residents from entering the country.

Residents in Hong Kong have donned surgical masks and shun shopping centres, restaurants and other crowded places out of fears of catching the disease.

A Hong Kong government spokeswoman said Saturday that local television stations would provide “marathon coverage” of a territory-wide cleanup planned for April 19.

The stations will also produce television specials about the campaign, said B. Lai, a spokeswoman for the Home Affairs Department.

The government has distributed bleach in a neighbourhood where many Sars cases have been discovered, and launched a public health campaign urging residents to frequently wash their hands and clean up their homes to prevent the virus from spreading further.

On Thursday, the administration ordered people living with Sars victims to stay at home and on Friday it banned them from leaving Hong Kong.