WHO team to Chinese area hit by SARS

Beijing - World Health Organization experts are being sent to a crowded province in China where SARS is spreading fast, while new research published Wednesday suggests the illness is much more deadly than other respiratory diseases.

Russia was considering tough restrictions along its border with China, where experts say the SARS epidemic has yet to peak despite tough measures — including arrests of alleged Internet rumor mongers and action against doctors who refuse to treat the infection.

In Washington, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson said China and the United States would work closer on SARS, although a senior Chinese official was noncommittal about providing U.S. scientists with specimens from patients.

The U.S. government has authorized immigration and customs inspectors at U.S. airports to use force to detain passengers who appear to have SARS symptoms, The New York Times reported Wednesday. None had been detained so far, it said.

New findings in The Lancet medical journal show that SARS is killing one in five of patients hospitalized with the virus in hard-hit Hong Kong, including 55 percent of infected patients aged over 60.

In younger patients, the death rate could be as low as 6.8 percent, the study found.

"That's sadly still very high for a respiratory infection," said Roy Anderson, the epidemiologist at London's Imperial College who headed the study. "In other common respiratory infections it is much less than 1 percent in the vulnerable elderly."

The research, which also involved the University of Hong Kong and Hong Kong health authorities — is the first major study of SARS trends but was based only on data from Hong Kong, where at least 204 people have died.

Scientists differ over what the chances are for an average person anywhere dying from it. Worldwide, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention puts the death rate at 6.6 percent. The World Health Organization says it ranges from 6 percent to 10 percent.

WHO said it will deploy an investigative team on Thursday to the densely populated northern province of Hebei, where the number of SARS infections has "risen sharply" in the past week, doubling to 98 between April 30 and May 4.

So far 113 cases have been reported in Hebei. The province borders Beijing — which has been worst affected by SARS epidemic.

The world SARS death toll was at least 484. More than 6,700 have been infected since the disease surfaced in China's southern province of Guangdong in November. China has had 219 SARS deaths, about half of them in Beijing.

Chinese police said Wednesday that pets owned by quarantined people must be isolated or put to death for fear that the animals may carry the disease. In the eastern city of Nanjing, where about 10,000 people are under quarantine, dogs are banned from streets, parks and other public places, authorities said.

In northeastern Liaoning province, authorities revoked the licenses of two doctors, one for refusing to see patients with fevers and the other for refusing to attend meetings on SARS prevention, Xinhua said.

Another doctor lost her job in the southwestern province of Sichuan when she refused to work with suspected SARS patients, the agency said.

In Beijing, four people have been detained and accused of "causing public panic" and "disrupting social order" by spreading SARS rumors on the Internet and through mobile phone messages, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

Around the world, countries were trying to find ways to keep SARS away from their borders.

Organizers of the Miss Universe pageant said contestants — especially those from countries most affected by SARS — must produce health certificates before they can participate in the contest, scheduled for June 3 in Panama City.

In Europe, health ministers agreed to spend an extra $23 million on research, including the development of a SARS vaccine. But they failed to agree on SARS screening at European airports, fearing such measures would be too heavy-handed.

Russia's top health official recommended restrictions on the Russian-Chinese border.

"Only Chinese citizens should be allowed to leave and only Russian citizens should be let in," Gennady Onishchenko told Echo of Moscow radio, in remarks shown on Russian television. "This process has been working: no SARS has been brought in," he said.

Onishchenko said that he might raise the issue of fully closing Russia's border with China,although this would hurt trade.

In the United States, Health Secretary Thompson said Chinese Vice Premier and Health Minister Wu Yi agreed to cooperate in training and lab development while more U.S. health advisers would be put on the ground in China.

Thompson said that in a telephone call Monday night, Wu was noncommittal when asked if China would give U.S. experts specimens from Chinese patients at various stages of infection. -- Associated Press

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