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Health chief ill as virus spreads
HONG KONG, China -- A senior official from Hong Kong's Hospital Authority has been admitted to hospital with symptoms of pneumonia, health officials in the territory say. However, it was not known whether Dr William Ho, chief executive of the authority, had been affected with the new and potentially deadly mystery illness -- severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) -- that has spread rapidly in the territory hospitalizing dozens of sufferers. His condition was said to be stable. Authorities on Monday also reported two more patients had died from SARS, bringing to 10 the number of deaths in Hong Kong. There had been 18 new cases, officials said, bringing the total to 260. In Singapore, the government has ordered about 740 people who may have been exposed to the illness to stay home for 10 days in efforts to contain the disease as the number of reported cases there jumped to 65. The city state's Health Minister Lim Hng Kiang said Monday he was invoking the Infectious Diseases Act for what could be the first time since Singapore gained independence in 1965. (Stay at home order) Hong Kong remains the most seriously affected area in the world, with many residents resorting to wearing surgical masks and avoiding crowded areas. Four schools have temporarily closed in Hong Kong after five students, a teacher and a bus driver contracted SARS. The other 180 students at the schools have shown no symptoms of the virus but will stop attending school for a week as a precaution. Globally more than 400 people have been infected or suspected of being infected with SARS, prompting a rare alert from the World Health Organization. Two people have died in Canada, two also in Vietnam while authorities are trying to determine if a third death in the Southeast Asian nation was linked to the mystery illness. France on Monday said it had a suspected case of the respiratory virus after a male health worker fell sick upon his return from Asia. French media said the man worked in the same hospital in Hanoi where a Vietnamese nurse and a French doctor died from the virus after treating a U.S. businessman there, Reuters news agency reported. Health officials in France said Friday they had six patients under observation on in other hospitals.
Little is still known about the illness, but on Monday, U.S. health experts said they had evidence that a new strain of a virus that causes the common cold may be responsible. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said tissue samples taken from two patients infected by SARS had tested positive for a new form of coronavirus. (Cold virus link) And a team of scientists at the University of Hong Kong say they have isolated a virus that causes SARS and developed a test to identify it. Officials in the former British territory said that about 100 health care workers were treated with a combination of anti-viral drugs and steroids. Eighty five percent of the patients were showing signs of improvement. Experts believe the disease is linked to an outbreak of atypical pneumonia in the neighboring Guangdong province on the Chinese mainland earlier this month. Symptoms include a fever above 38C (100.4 F), muscle aches, chills and sore throat, followed by shortness of breath, coughing, and evidence of pneumonia in a chest X-ray.
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