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WHO extends SARS travel warnings to TorontoCanada criticizes action; Beijing closes schools
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- The World Health Organization stepped up its SARS-related travel warnings Wednesday, urging people to avoid unnecessary trips to China's Shanxi Province, Beijing and Toronto, Ontario. Canadian officials lashed out, saying the WHO advisory is an "overreaction" for their country, where health officials reported more SARS deaths Wednesday for a total of 16. They plan to lodge a formal complaint to the WHO about the travel warning. In Beijing -- which has reported scores of new cases in recent days -- the government said it would quarantine people suspected of having SARS and possibly infected buildings, according to Xinhua, China's official news agency. The WHO reports 2,305 confirmed cases in mainland China, including 106 deaths, and 1,458 cases in Hong Kong, with 105 deaths. Also, city authorities announced that almost 2 million students will have their classes suspended for two weeks, starting Thursday in an effort to stem SARS. In the advisory announcement, the WHO's David Heymann identified the three areas as having a "high magnitude of disease, a great risk of transmission locally outside the usual health workers ... and also there is exporting of cases." "Today, one of the most important means of spreading diseases around the globe is air travel," said Heymann, executive director of the WHO's communicable diseases programs. The advisory against nonessential travel to these areas will be in effect for three weeks. It is an extension of previous travel warnings to Hong Kong and China's Guangdong Province, where severe acute respiratory syndrome was first reported last year. WHO has issued travel warnings because of illness in the past, warning travelers about plague in India in 1994. With fears over the deadly illness taking grip, Chinese scientists have been mapping the genetic code from samples of the SARS virus in the hope of finding clues on treating and ultimately preventing it. In doing so, they said, they have found considerable variations between samples taken in Beijing and those in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong. But an infectious disease expert told CNN that genetic differences don't necessarily mean one viral strain is more virulent than another or that a vaccine might work on only one form of the virus. (Search for SARS treatment) CDC in Canada; Baseball issues precautionsThe WHO's travel warning comes a day after a similar announcement from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In addition to previous alerts for travelers to and from countries where the disease continues to spread, the CDC issued an alert Tuesday for travel to Canada. The alert advises travelers to avoid health-care settings and other places where people with SARS might be. A CDC team was in Toronto Wednesday to begin work focused on tracking the spread of SARS in health-care settings. (Full story) Major League Baseball also has issued precautions to teams visiting Toronto in the next few weeks, recommending that players abstain from signing autographs or mingling with crowds, according to The Associated Press. (Full story) CDC Director Julie Gerberding said Tuesday the SARS mortality rate worldwide stands at 5.9 percent of the probable cases counted. But Gerberding said the death rate may increase as diagnostic techniques improve and cases that might not have been included earlier are counted in the SARS numbers.
As of Wednesday, the flulike virus has killed 251 people in 27 countries, with 4,288 probable cases, according to the WHO. Despite the relatively low number of probable SARS cases in the United States -- 39, with no deaths attributed to the disease -- Gerberding warned, "We're not out of the woods yet. "The last thing that we can do at this point is relax and say, 'Thank goodness we don't have very many probable cases in the United States, and therefore maybe we're not ever going to have any subsequent spread,' '' she said. "This is exactly the time we need to continue to do what we've been doing." (Full story) SARS is characterized by a fever, dry coughing and breathing problems. Experts said they believe the respiratory disease spreads through close contact with an infected person, such as between family members or a patient and health-care provider. Copyright 2003 CNN. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.
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