WHO concerned that missing SARS data hampering containmentfo

BEIJING -- Beijing has not explained how half of its SARS patients caught the virus, hindering efforts to slow the highly contagious illness in the world's most populous nation, the World Health Organization said Saturday.

The WHO announcement came as Taiwan reported its biggest one-day jump in SARS cases, 23, and four more deaths. The virus is surfacing in new, unexpected places in Taiwan, according to the WHO, and the U.S. State Department said it was allowing its nonessential personnel to leave the island.

China reported five more deaths and Hong Kong two, boosting the worldwide SARS death count to at least 526. More than 7,200 people have been infected in over 25 countries, including 85 new cases reported in China.

China has reported more than 4,800 SARS cases.

The WHO is still trying to figure out why Beijing does not have the data, or so-called "contact reports," that help trace how a patient became infected with SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, WHO spokeswoman Mangai Balasegaram said.

A lot of unknowns

"Right now the situation is that we have a whole load of people, and we don't know where they got the disease," she said. "The epidemic might be flying off in one direction, and you might not know about it."

Balasegaram said the lack of information might have to do with bad reporting, some hospitals inadvertently failing to file complete reports or the changing nature of the illness itself.

"It's just a whole load of unknowns," she said.

At a news conference Friday, Beijing officials acknowledged that about half the city's nearly 2,200 cases have not been traced but they did not directly explain why.

China was criticized for dragging its feet on releasing information on SARS after the disease struck in November, and has given heavy media coverage to its recent, tough efforts to control the disease.

There have been a flurry of demonstrations in recent weeks around China, where many people are trying to seal off their villages and neighborhoods from the illness. WHO has imposed a new travel warning on Tianjin.

The WHO also said SARS was appearing in new, unpredictable places in Taiwan.

Earlier, officials were able to quickly trace and isolate those infected -- many of whom had recently visited China or Hong Kong. But SARS has begun spreading rapidly within Taiwan's general community, making it harder to stop. The island, claimed by China, has more than 22 million people.

The U.S. State Department said SARS concerns prompted it to authorize "the voluntary departure of family members and nonemergency personnel" at its offices in the capital, Taipei, and the second-largest city, Kaohsiung.

Masks made mandatory

Shoppers found the doors closed at one of Taipei's largest department stores Saturday as managers ordered a major cleanup after an employee contracted SARS. Taipei city officials ordered all passengers on the capital's subway to wear masks beginning today.

Desperate to avoid a wider outbreak, Singapore said people entering public hospitals soon will have their movements electronically tracked and recorded in an effort to curb the spread of SARS. People will wear around their necks credit card-sized tags that communicate via radio with sensors hidden in hospital ceilings.

Singapore has more than 200 cases of SARS and 27 deaths, the most behind China and Hong Kong.

Despite anti-SARS efforts that have closed schools and businesses and confined thousands of people in quarantine, China said Saturday that it will not delay its first manned space launch because of the SARS outbreak.

The flight of the Shenzhou V spacecraft is a key propaganda goal for China's communist leaders. A successful launch would make China the third nation, after Russia and the United States, to send a human into space on its own.

A front-page report in the People's Daily did not give a date for the space shot. Earlier reports have put it in the second half of this year.

Beijing is believed to have invested at least $1 billion in the program -- a large sum for a country where the average person earns the equivalent of about $700 a year. But the government covets success as a symbol of communist-led progress.

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On the Net:

World Health Organization: http://www.who.int/en/