Health experts set out for China's poor rural hinterlands today in an attempt to check the spread of SARS as 21 new deaths from the virus were reported in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
World Health Organisation (WHO) teams were fanning out across China in hopes of better understanding the spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome as fears rose that the situation in the world's most populous nation could be much worse than admitted, a WHO official said.
Up until now, the WHO's focus has been on Beijing and the source of the outbreak in southern Guangdong province, two areas which have seen the largest number of cases.
China reported 12 new SARS deaths and 75 new cases today, mostly in the capital, as fatalities leapt back into double digits after several days of decline.
Beijing authorities also announced thousands more residents had been placed under quarantine. The Beijing foreign affairs office said more than 23,000 people had been quarantined in the Chinese capital, an increase of more than 4,000 from the previous day.
But the focus of attention is shifting increasingly to the countryside where primitive medical facilities and poor information are expected to hamper the battle to keep SARS from devastating rural areas.
WHO officials said it was unknown why neighbouring provinces were reporting only a small number of cases, especially given the large flow of migrant workers.
"That's why the teams are going out there because they don't know what's going on. If there is missing data, it (the real situation) may be much worse," WHO spokeswoman Mangai Balasegaram said.
Three new deaths and five cases were also recorded in Hong Kong, bringing the number of SARS fatalities to 218 from 1,683 infections, Hospital Authority senior executive manager Liu Shao-haei told reporters.
The outbreak has so far killed nearly 560 people and infected more than 7,400 worldwide, although Swiss pharmaceuticals group Roche hopes to make an effective SARS diagnostic test available at cost to laboratories in affected countries by the end of July, company officials in Singapore said today.
AFP