China sealed off a SARS research lab in its capital yesterday after two lab workers fell ill and the mother of one died in what could be the world's first SARS fatality this year.
A nurse who looked after one of the ill lab workers caught the disease and was also in isolation, the government said.
The lab infections and their transmission to others "are an embarrassment to China," said World Health Organization (WHO) spokesman Bob Dietz. "It's not good that this happened in the lab. It's not good that the health of these people was apparently not monitored."
However, the virus is "not out in the public," he said. "The Ground Zero has been identified."
Also yesterday, the Health Ministry said there were no new cases of SARS.
The virus control institute at China's Centers for Disease Control was sealed off and would remain so until at least May 7, the ministry said on its Web site. More than 180 of its workers were quarantined in a hotel in Beijing's outskirts, state newspapers reported -- along with pictures showing the workers in face masks taking a bus to a hotel Friday night.
Chinese health officials said a 26-year-old woman who worked in the lab was confirmed to have SARS. She is believed to have infected her mother, who died on Monday.
The daughter was treated last month at a Beijing hospital, where she came into contact with the 20-year-old nurse, who is also now a confirmed SARS case, the Health Ministry said.
A colleague at the Centers for Disease Control lab -- a 31-year-old Beijing man -- is listed as a suspected case, the ministry said on its Web site.
Officials said they hadn't confirmed whether the lab worker's mother died of SARS.
A statement on the WHO Web site said she had "clinical symptoms ... compatible with SARS." But a man who answered the phone yesterday at the Beijing municipal Health Bureau and wouldn't give his name said she was still a "suspected case."
"Whether her death was related to SARS or not needs further pathologic analysis," the official Xinhua News Agency said.
The government newspaper China Daily tried to put the incident in a positive light, citing health experts who said "the silver lining" was that the virus came from a laboratory, which reduced the risk to the general public.
But WHO said the lab worker and her mother took several train trips together between Beijing and the eastern province of Anhui and might have exposed many other people to the virus.
Hospitals along the line have been put on alert to report any cases of pneumonia, said Maria Cheng, a WHO spokeswoman in Geneva.
"Here it looks like we had human-to-human transmission and there's clearly a travel history where they might have exposed other people," Cheng said.
SARS first emerged in southern China in November, 2002, and the Chinese government was criticized internationally for initially being slow to publicize information about the disease. It vowed to be more open.
Last year's SARS outbreak triggered a global health crisis, killing 774 people around the world and infecting more than 8,000. China reported 349 deaths, with its last confirmed fatality last July.
China said yesterday it was screening thousands of travelers for fevers at airports and train stations in a massive effort to block a new outbreak of SARS. Hundreds of people with possible exposure to the virus were being held under medical observation.
The lab worker's mother was hospitalized on April 8 with a fever -- a key SARS symptom -- and an unidentified virus, the ministry said. It said she died on Monday and was cremated.
Asia, which was hardest hit by last year's SARS crisis, braced for a possible return of the virus.
The new cases in China "serve as a timely reminder to countries in the region to be constantly vigilant in monitoring communicable diseases," Asian health ministers said in a statement.
Singapore alerted its hospitals to be on guard for possible SARS cases and to take extra care when handling patients arriving from China.
Also, staff at CKS International Airport made passengers arriving from China fill out health forms yesterday as a precaution against SARS, and checked all arriving and departing passengers for symptoms of the disease, like fevers and shortness of breath.
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
RSS