SARS crisis escalates in Taiwan

The SARS crisis escalated sharply in Taiwan today with eight new deaths and a record jump in infections.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation visited a poor Chinese province that could prove to be fertile ground for a future, and potentially devastating, epidemic.

Highlighting the disease’s global nature, Canadian officials angrily rejected suggestions a Finnish man contracted SARS in Toronto, a city which insists its outbreak is under control.

The international death toll from Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) was at least 544. There were at least 7,300 known cases.

As new case rates drop in Beijing, Hong Kong and elsewhere, the disease spread in Taiwan.

New deaths there pushed the island’s tally to 27 fatalities and 207 cases of infection.

Disturbingly it also reported 23 new cases today – its worst one day jump since the outbreak began two months ago.

The WHO visited China’s southern Guangxi province, fearing it could be hit by an epidemic which could be brought in by hundreds of thousands of returning migrant workers.

Although infection rates in some urban areas, like Beijing are falling, there is a real danger that SARS could spread fast through the countryside.

Premier Wen Jiabao has warned of possible unseen “channels of infection” in rural areas without adequate hospitals and doctors.

“Guangxi is susceptible to infection because of its location,” WHO spokeswoman Mangai Balasegaram said. “It’s a poor region. It would be ... less able to cope.”

In Finland, the University of Turku Central Hospital said a Finnish man who had been on holiday in SARS-hit Toronto in late April had contracted the illness.

But Canadian officials, eager to avoid more disruption to tourism, disputed that there was a Toronto link to the case.

Dr Colin D’Cunha, health commissioner in Ontario province, said the idea was “preposterous,” and that the only way the man could have been infected in Toronto was through SARS patients in a hospital.

“Unless somebody managed to visit one of our hospitals despite the restrictions they couldn’t have been exposed – it’s that blunt,” he said.

“I am sure (the Finnish patient) had some respiratory symptoms and, simply put, was diagnosed with SARS because the person had spent some time in Toronto.

Meanwhile, the number of SARS cases in China passed 5,000 as 12 more deaths were reported in Beijing – bringing the international death toll to at least 556.

There have been at least 7,400 known SARS cases.

China remains the hardest hit country with at least 252 dead.

Although some Chinese infection rates have been declining, today’s 75 cases raised its infection tally to 5,013.