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Caught in a viral maelstrom
By CNN's Marianne Bray
HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- When I met Dr. Yeoh Eng-kiong, Hong Kong's secretary for health, welfare and food, he extended his hand. If this wasn't Hong Kong in the midst of a mystery virus outbreak I wouldn't have thought twice. But as his hand came out I hesitated for a moment. With little option but to shake it, I did, albeit less surely and firmly than normal, with a joke to lighten the mood. Shaking hands has become a no-no in this territory of 6.9 million people, as has coughing or sneezing, as authorities try to contain a pneumonia that has killed 16 people and infected 708 in a matter of weeks. Yeoh is the man caught up in the center of this maelstrom and all eyes have turned to him as the epidemic called SARS has the city and the world on edge. Twenty-three days of virus control in densely populated Hong Kong has taken its toll on the 56-year-old Yeoh as he hurries from one meeting to another. That evening alone, he had held a press conference with chief executive Tung Chee-hwa, where they tried to downplay an unprecedented World Health Organization travel alert for Hong Kong and Guangdong. At the presser, Tung was level-headed about the rare advisory which urged travelers to postpone their trips, saying business visitors and tourists to Hong Kong had slowed already. Speaking in front of a horde of microphones, Yeoh added he was hopeful the territory could be at the tail end of a surge in infections as new cases rose by just 23 on Wednesday, a big drop from Tuesday's 75. Hong Kong officials thought they had SARS under control, with the city reporting around 20 to 30 new cases every day for the past two weeks, when suddenly hundreds of residents in a housing estate succumbed to the respiratory illness, sparking alarm. Authorities are busy checking the Amoy Garden outbreak, Yeoh said, where almost 200 residents from one block were hospitalized. They are investigating whether sewage and water systems could be to blame, and have quarantined another 300 residents to four holiday camps. Virus-laden droplets from a leaking sewage pipe, which typically hang on the outside of Hong Kong buildings, could in theory have affected hundreds of neighbors, Yeoh said. While the government is hopeful the situation has calmed down, nonetheless I asked Yeoh how Hong Kong would cope with an influx if it got worse. Princess Margaret Hospital, the designated center for new cases, has 500 beds in its infectious block, he said. At the moment 400 SARS patients are being looked after there. Meanwhile, another 200 patients are being cared for in the Prince of Wales and United Christian hospitals. But if the situation did get out of hand, Yeoh told me the territory has 29,000 beds available, of which 40 percent could be used for infected patients.
Before I could ask how many people in intensive care recover, Yeoh had been called to the TV studio, where he defended the government against criticism officials did not act quickly enough to contain the spread of the illness. "I guess when there are outbreaks we tend to point fingers. When you have an unknown agent and an unknown disease syndrome, I guess one has difficulties first identifying it," Yeoh told CNN. While officials here have been at the end of a barrage of criticism, in particular the speed at which they closed down schools and quarantined those in contact with suspected cases, authorities elsewhere have applauded their efforts. The director of the U.S.-based Center for Disease Control said Hong Kong authorities had made "heroic measures" to curtail the disease's spread. In three weeks, Hong Kong doctors and scientists managed to identify the virus and came up with treatment protocols that led to improvements in 95 percent of patients, Yeoh said. In hospitals around Hong Kong, doctors are now trying a risky but cutting-edge cocktail of the potent antiviral drug ribavirin with high doses of steroids. As I walked to the taxi, I couldn't help but notice how much life had changed in Hong Kong, as only a few masked faces walked in the near deserted streets of this former bustling city.
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