SARS peaks in hot spots outside China

Bangkok - Outbreaks of the deadly flu-like SARS have peaked in Canada, Singapore, Hong Kong and Vietnam, but not in China, where the virus first emerged last year, the World Health Organisation says.

The disease was on the rise in China, the world's most populous country, with 139 SARS deaths and more than 3,000 cases, and the "unknown question" in the equation, it added on Monday.

At least 327 people around the world have died from Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which started in China's Guangdong province late last year and has been spread by travellers to more than 20 countries. More than 5,000 people have been infected.

WHO chief of communicable diseases David Heymann told Reuters in an interview in Bangkok the spread of SARS had peaked in all but one of the countries known to have outbreaks as of March 15.

"It seems that it has peaked in all places that we knew about on the 15th of March, except in China, and in China it's on the increase, unfortunately," said Heymann, in Bangkok to brief Asian leaders holding a meeting on SARS on Tuesday.

"Taiwan wasn't known to have ongoing transmission then. It was Canada, Singapore, Hong Kong and Vietnam. They were the four," he said.

But the disease has apparently claimed its first victim in another Asian country. A man classified as a probable SARS case has died in Indonesia, a health official said, the first such death reported in the world's fourth most populous nation.

Vietnam said its SARS outbreak had been "successfully contained" and the WHO in Hanoi said the communist country offered hope to the world.

The Taiwan stock market grappled with the economic fallout of SARS on Monday, falling 2.2 percent to its weakest close in six months while the Taiwan dollar slumped beyond T$35 to the U.S. dollar.

Taiwan said on Sunday it would close its borders to visitors from SARS-stricken China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Canada for two weeks and quarantine residents returning from those places.

"Investors are worried that the travel ban will hamper business activity," said SinoPac Securities assistant research manager Richard Li.

Shares were weaker in China but up slightly in Hong Kong and Singapore as falling infection rates offered some relief.

SARS killed 12 more people in Hong Kong on Sunday. But there were only 16 new cases, lower than the daily average of 20 to 30 reported in the past few weeks.

Two large hospitals in Hong Kong have begun moving SARS patients to another hospital to free up facilities for other seriously ill patients who have not been treated for almost two months due to the epidemic.

Heymann, asked if he was confident that the worldwide spread of SARS could be stopped, said: "No we are not. We are hoping."

"China is the key and it's the unknown question in the whole formula, because if China cannot contain it then it can't be removed," he said.

China said on Monday nine more people had died from SARS and 203 people were infected, taking the death toll to 139 and the number of cases to 3,106.

Nearly half, or 96, of the new cases were in Beijing, which is reeling from a huge jump in cases since the health minister and city mayor were fired for covering up the extent of the outbreak.

The city now has 59 reported deaths -- more than any other area of the country, including the southern province of Guangdong where SARS first appeared in November -- and 1,199 cases.

SARS kills about six percent of the people it infects and has no known cure. An official from the WHO said on Saturday it may take years to find a vaccine.

Heymann said there were a lot of things scientists and doctors needed to learn about the virus, before its spread could be brought under control.

"We don't understand whether it is occurring in an asymptomatic form, which may be already spread around the world as occurred in AIDS, with a long incubation period."

The outbreak is having a severe economic impact in Asia, a region that faced recession, debt defaults and currency crises during a 1997-99 economic slump.

Hotels, airlines and retailers already face slumping sales; hospitals are stretched to the breaking point and experts say the economic costs are bound to rise.

Taiwan announced its most draconian moves to date to control the virus while Beijing closed theatres and other entertainment centres.

The Asian Development Bank cut its growth forecast for the region this year to 5.3 percent, from the 5.6 percent it expected in December, due to the impact of SARS and an uncertain global economic recovery.

But assuming the deadly virus can be brought under control swiftly with minimal damage to tourism, Asian economies -- excluding Japan -- should grow at a faster rate of 5.9 percent in 2004, the Manila-based bank said in a regional outlook.

Canada, the only country outside Asia where people have died of SARS, says the disease will hit an economy that has long been the star performer within the Group of Seven rich industrialised countries. -- Reuters

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