SARS Spreading Fast in Taiwan, Which Fights to Contain It

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

SARS Spreading Fast in Taiwan, Which Fights to Contain It

May 2, 2003
By KEITH BRADSHER with ERIK ECKHOLM




 

HONG KONG, May 2 - SARS appears to be spreading in Taiwan
now as fast or faster than anywhere except mainland China,
prompting a desperate effort by Taiwanese officials to
contain the disease.

Taiwan announced today that it had 11 more confirmed cases,
bringing the total to 100, a total that has more than
tripled in the last 10 days. Five people died of the
disease today in Taiwan, raising the island's death toll
from the disease to eight.

That is far less than in Beijing, now the epicenter of the
epidemic, where the city's chief epidemiologist spoke
hopefully of a plateau in new cases, at about a hundred
cases a day, though other experts were doubtful.

Taiwan's Center for Disease Control said that doctors were
investigating whether 384 more people may have the disease;
97 of them are classified as suspected cases, while the
rest are classified as less likely "pending" cases.

To contain the outbreak, Taiwan has resorted to quarantine
measures as drastic as any in the world. Health officials
have ordered 6,004 close personal contacts of SARS patients
to stay at home for 10 days. Only a third of them have
finished their periods of home confinement so far.

Taiwan has also banned visitors from Hong Kong, mainland
China and Singapore, while imposing a 10-day quarantine on
its own citizens if they return from these places.

Almost all of those sick with the virus are medical
workers, and Taiwan's quarantine program is aimed at
containing SARS, severe acute respiratory syndrome, in the
hospitals; Taiwan health officials repeated today their
position that the disease is not yet spreading through
communities. 

But considerable anxiety is already apparent in the general
public, said Andrew Yang, the secretary general of the
Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies.

"People are concerned that there still may be some unknown
number of people out in the streets who may make the SARS
situation worse," he said.

As elsewhere, the disease is also inflicting considerable
harm on the economy, mainly by shriveling demand for
businesses that provide services, like taxis and hotels.

Lian Chia-liang, an economist with J. P. Morgan Chase,
predicted today that the Taiwanese economy would shrink by
1 percent in the period from April through June; earlier
this year, before SARS, he had been expecting growth of
nearly 2 percent in the quarter.

But Mr. Lian expects Taiwan's government to bring the
problem under control by midsummer, allowing a recovery to
start in the third quarter and reach full speed in the
fourth quarter. 

"I think it will be a short, sharp falloff in output, but
technically not a recession," which would require two
consecutive quarters of shrinking economic output, he said.


Taiwan's legislature approved today a $1.44 billion plan to
offset some of the economic impact, mainly through
financial help to businesses especially hurt by the
outbreak. Mr. Lian said his forecasts included the benefits
of the extra government money.

The problems in Taiwan come as the disease is still
infecting more people in China.

But in Beijing the number of new cases dipped, and
scientists there grasped for signs that may not get any
worse. 

Beijing's top epidemiologist said today that the spread of
SARS may have reached a plateau at about 100 new cases per
day. Other experts said the conclusion was premature.

Cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome in China's
suddenly overwhelmed capital may now have reached "a stable
period with the upward trend contained," the official,
Liang Wannian, the deputy director of the city health
bureau, said at a news conference.

"I believe the number of patients will drop in the future,
but it's hard to say when because we don't know a lot about
the disease," he said.

Health authorities would be slightly relieved by solid
evidence that SARS in Beijing - now the epicenter of the
global epidemic - is not zooming higher each day.

But international experts said they were not yet convinced
because the city has not yet learned enough about its
patients, whose numbers have climbed relentlessly from
fewer than 350 on April 20 to more than 1,650 as of this
morning, rising by 96 from Thursday.

"I think we still need a far more thorough analysis before
we can predict the path of the epidemic" in China, Henk
Bekedam, chief of the World Health Organization office,
said in an interview. "In any case, a daily increase of 100
is no small issue."

China, with a total of 3,799 cases nationwide reported
today, including 181 deaths, has more SARS patients than
the rest of the world combined, and the course the disease
takes in this vast country will be crucial to the global
battle against the disease.

Health experts' biggest worry in China right now, beyond
the crisis in Beijing, is the possibility that the SARS
virus will storm through the country's hinterlands, where
medical facilities are in no shape for stopping it. The
World Health Organization is tripling its expert staff in
Beijing, to 30 from 10, to help Beijing and provincial
officials step up their data analysis and control efforts.

The number of new cases in Hong Kong has been slowly
dwindling, prompting Dr. Margaret Chan, the health director
of the autonomous Chinese territory, to warn today against
complacency. 

Hong Kong reported 11 new cases today, less that a third of
its daily total a month ago, although still as many as
Taiwan. But Hong Kong listed just 32 suspected cases today,
far fewer than Taiwan.

Many people who have been in hospital for weeks here are
now succumbing to SARS, most of them elderly patients,
often with previous chronic medical conditions. There were
eight more deaths here today, compared to none in Taiwan,
as the death toll here rose to 170.

But some middle-aged people have also died, including
parents. Carrie Lam, Hong Kong's director of social
welfare, appealed to the public today to contribute to a
fund to pay for the education of 24 children here who have
lost at least one parent to SARS and, in some cases, both
parents. 

Hong Kong is nonetheless trying to return to normal. After
closing at the start of April, high schools and junior
highs reopened last week. Arthur K. C. Li, Hong Kong's
secretary of education and manpower, announced today that
students in fourth through sixth grades were to return to
school on May 12. The lower grades in elementary schools,
as well as kindergartens and day-care centers, are
scheduled to reopen on May 19.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/02/health/02CND-SARS.html?ex=1052908289&ei=1&;
en=2782bad8d0984d29



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