Taiwan subway new front in SARS war

The subway system in the capital of Taiwan became a new front in the war against SARS today 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 newly discovered illness.

Meanwhile, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder went ahead with a Southeast Asian tour despite concerns about the disease and a top university in the United States slightly eased a ban on students from countries hit by SARS – severe acute respiratory syndrome.

In Beijing, optimistic officials said the SARS outbreak in the capital was waning.

But 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”.

China remains the hardest hit country with 235 SARS deaths and almost 5,000 people infected.

Thousands are being kept in quarantine amid fears that the disease is spreading from cities and into the impoverished countryside, where medical facilities would not be able to cope with a sweeping epidemic.

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 cannot explain how about half of its more than 2,200 SARS patients caught the virus – an omission in data which hinders attempts to fight its spread.

The worldwide SARS death toll was at least 526 today.

More than 7,300 people have been infected in over 25 countries, including 12 new cases in Taiwan, where officials fear the illness is spreading from the capital and through the south of the island.

In response, Taiwan is installing video cameras to keep watch over about 8,000 people quarantined in their homes in case they have contracted the illness.

Video surveillance was ordered after three-times-a-day phone call checks by health officials were being circumvented by people who broke the quarantine by leaving home and forwarding all calls to their mobile phones.

In a tough new restriction, all passengers on Taipei’s subway system now must wear medical masks.

When the measure came into force today, 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.

SARS has killed 18 people and infected 184 in Taiwan, where the transmission pattern is described as high by WHO’s Web site.

In Hong Kong, where 212 people have died and 1,674 have been infected, warm weather and a falling infection rate led many people to stop wearing masks.

Medical authorities say most people do not have to wear masks during their daily routines.

Business people and tourism officials, worried about Hong Kong’s image, have welcomed their growing abandonment.

“You can’t see our smile when we put the masks on,” said James Lu, executive director of the Hong Kong Hotels Association. “As soon as SARS is over, we’d like to have burn-the-masks day.”