SARS-struck Hong Kong struggling for normalcy

HONG KONG -- Hong Kong reopened most secondary schools Tuesday three weeks after they were closed to keep the SARS virus from spreading, but thousands of students in surgical masks were walking proof the territory still has a long way to go.

The daily number of new SARS cases here has declined in recent days, but World Health Organization officials say that is not enough to consider the disease under control.

At the same time, Hong Kong reported five new deaths Tuesday, bringing the total to 99. Most officials have consistently avoided any predictions about when they might overcome the worst disaster here in years, despite Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa's expression of optimism Monday.

He said the former British colony was "slowly, but surely getting the figures stabilized" after quarantining households of SARS patients and tracking down more possible contacts.

But experts say they are looking for a sharp and sustained drop in new infections -- lasting for weeks, not just days -- that would show severe acute respiratory syndrome is coming under control.

Containment sought

The WHO says there are several signs needed to indicate the outbreak is finally contained: when the spread in the local community is stemmed; when no new infections have been exported to other countries for a certain amount of time; when the total number of cases falls to a certain level; and when the number of new infections detected each day is under a particular number.

WHO officials have not determined what the required thresholds are, but they expect to have that worked out within the next few days, said Dr. David Heymann, WHO's communicable diseases chief.

Dr. Lo Wing-lok, president of the Hong Kong Medical Association and an infectious disease expert, said he believed "in three months' time Hong Kong can return to almost normal, not completely normal."

Even then, Hong Kong might continue to have sporadic cases, he said.

Health Secretary Dr. Yeoh Eng-kiong acknowledged Tuesday that SARS "is going to be with us for some time."

"We do not anticipate that it will be eradicated completely, because it's a highly infectious virus," he said.

And although some 200,000 Hong Kong secondary students went back Tuesday to schools closed since March 9, some administrators refused to open.

Some students, too, were fearful. Tom Leung was annoyed that only some grades had to go back and accused authorities of treating him and classmates as "lab mice." Another 900,000 younger students are expected to return to class Monday.

Hong Kong still is feeling the sting of the WHO advisory urging against travel there. The de facto Hong Kong airline, Cathay Pacific Airways, announced more temporary cuts in service Tuesday, saying it now has scrapped 281 flights -- about 45 percent of its schedule -- due to a plunge in traffic believed to be costing it $3 million a day.

An estimated 4,000 people worldwide have been infected by SARS, and the WHO reports at least 229 deaths, mostly in Asia. The United States reports just 38 probable cases and no deaths.

Even if new infections keep tapering off in Hong Kong, some experts fear the territory's proximity to mainland China, where the disease is believed to have originated and is still spreading, could complicate matters.

Dr. Henk Bekedam, the chief WHO representative in China, said Tuesday he was especially worried about SARS in the mainland's poorer western provinces, where "the public health system has collapsed in the last 10 or 20 years because the government has not supported it."

If mainland China cannot control the disease, he said, "it will be very problematic to deal with it globally. Diseases like this do not respect borders."

Hit by international criticism that it covered up information about SARS and aggravated the outbreak, Chinese officials appear to be making bolder public efforts to contain the disease. One example was a radio message broadcast across Beijing seeking two taxi drivers, who may have contracted the virus from an infected "male passenger dressed in a long green military-style coat," the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported Tuesday.

Both drivers eventually were found, Xinhua said without elaboration.

Mainland China reported 11 new deaths Tuesday, pushing its toll to 97 as its number of SARS cases surged well past 2,000, according to Xinhua.

Elsewhere, Malaysia announced its second SARS death -- a tour operator who visited China and Thailand.

Canadian authorities said hundreds of people in Toronto might have been exposed to SARS by two hospital employees, who ignored orders to stay home after they showed symptoms. Canada has reported 14 SARS deaths.

In Singapore, where 16 people have died, education officials pledged to distribute as many as 500,000 thermometers so students can check themselves for fever twice a day.

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On the Net

World Health Organization: www.who.int/csr/sars/en/