| ||
| ||
| ||
 |
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Taiwan strains from SARS outbreak
TAIPEI, Taiwan (CNN) -- Taiwan has confirmed 39 new cases of SARS as the outbreak of the deadly virus on the island continues to grow faster than any other area of the world. Even more troubling for health officials is the increase of cases with SARS-like symptoms, with a total of 99 reported Tuesday. Taiwan's Center for Disease Control also announced 12 new deaths due to SARS, bringing the total number of fatalities on the island to 52. With 383 confirmed cases of the virus, Taiwan is the third worst hit area in the world after Hong Kong and mainland China, and the only area where cases are continuing to soar so dramatically. Apart from Monday -- which was a public holiday when no new figures were released -- Taiwan has now seen three straight days where the daily tally of new cases has broken the previous record. Meanwhile health officials are also working off a backlog of more than 400 SARS-related cases, making for the possibility that the total number of cases could yet rise dramatically. Last Friday, Taiwan's Minister of Health Twu Shiing-jer announced his resignation on Taiwanese TV over continued criticism of the way authorities were handling the SARS outbreak. Sources close to the battle against SARS have said that Taiwan is at a crossroads. They say unless officials move quickly to contain the outbreak in hospitals and do a more effective job of tracing contacts of suspected patients, the epidemic risks taking a further turn for the worse with potentially serious consequences for the health care system. Mainland China meanwhile, which has seen the world's largest number of SARS cases, reported five new deaths and 17 probable cases Tuesday, a slight rise on Monday's numbers, but a continuation of a steady downward trend in the number of officially reported cases. Beijing, one of the worst-hit areas, has seen an especially rapid decline in cases. However, city health officials have denied that a rapid decrease in the capital's figures in recent days indicated intentional under-reporting or a cover-up. "I do not think we can exclude the possibility of a fluctuation in the number of new cases," Liang Wannian, a deputy chief of the Beijing health administration, told a news conference. He added that as China's goal is to eradicate SARS, there is no reason to under report the numbers now. On April 20, China's health minister was sacked along with Beijing's mayor for having seriously under-reported the number of SARS cases in China to that point. On Monday the head of the World Health Organization's team in Beijing said he remained concerned that some people with mild SARS symptoms might be released from hospital too early or otherwise not counted among SARS victims. The WHO says it believes the information gap is technical in nature and not a cover-up. Liang acknowledged that while new cases were sometimes misdiagnosed by mistake, the extent of under-reporting is negligible. In other developments: • Medical authorities in Hong Kong reported two SARS deaths Tuesday and four new cases, dashing hopes that the territory might record its first day in months without any new infections. On Monday Hong Kong reported just one new case of SARS in a four-month old baby. • In what will be welcome news to crisis-ridden airlines, a top WHO official said Monday that the risk of catching SARS aboard an aircraft was "infinitesimally low." Mike Ryan, WHO's global coordinator for anti-SARS efforts, said just 16 out of 7,800 cases worldwide had caught the bug while aboard airplanes. He said airport screening measures have reduced the danger of infection in the air to negligible levels. -- CNN's Mike Chinoy in Taipei, Taiwan and CNN Beijing Correspondent Lisa Rose Weaver contributed to this report
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
