Asian health officials plan ways to fight SARS

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- Health officials from across Asia came up with a joint plan Saturday to fight SARS with tighter screening of travelers, while a health minister blamed for China's slow response to the outbreak there was replaced.

Health ministers and senior officials from Southeast Asia, China, Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea approved a plan to boost screening at international departure points, bar travelers with SARS symptoms and require health forms for visitors from affected countries.

The worldwide spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, has been blamed on travelers in Asia, particularly in Hong Kong and southern China, where the flu-like disease emerged last fall.

Chua said the measures approved by the ministers would be presented to national leaders at a summit next week before being implemented formally.

Elsewhere, Hong Kong health officials reported 17 new cases of SARS infections Saturday, the lowest daily figure this month, but they said it was too early to know whether the disease was coming under control.

India reported its fifth case of SARS on Saturday, further raising fears the disease could spread swiftly among the country's more than 1 billion people, most of whom have inadequate health care.

SARS has killed more than 270 people worldwide and infected more than 4,600. In the United States, there have been 41 cases but no deaths.

'Unprecedented threat'

Saturday's meeting in Kuala Lumpur and next week's summit of Southeast Asian leaders in Thailand could determine the future course of how nations tackle SARS, said the WHO's Omi.

"The threat posed by SARS is unprecedented," Omi said. "The virus has already demonstrated its explosive power to cause sudden outbreaks in a large number of countries. Tourism has almost disappeared, normal life has been seriously disrupted."

China's Deputy Health Minister Huang Jiefu said the meeting underscored the need for Asia to be united "as a team to fight the epidemic."

Back in China, Health Minister Zhang Wenkang resigned Saturday and parliament assigned his duties to Vice Premier Wu Yi, the government said. Wu, China's highest-ranking woman, is a respected former trade envoy and already was the top official in charge of health care.

Zhang's replacement came amid increasingly drastic official steps to contain SARS, including the quarantine of thousands of people this week in Beijing and the closing of a third hospital.

President Hu Jintao and other senior leaders last week declared fighting SARS a national priority and ordered Chinese officials to disclose all data on the epidemic. That followed criticism by the head of the WHO that China acted too late in releasing information about the outbreak.

Wu is one of four vice premiers, who outrank Cabinet ministers in the Chinese hierarchy. On Saturday, the state television evening news devoted several lengthy reports to Wu and her accomplishments -- an almost unprecedented step for an official of her rank.

In a gesture meant to display Chinese leaders' concern for the public, she and Premier Wen Jiabao were shown visiting a supermarket and eating with students Saturday at a Beijing university.

Elsewhere, the debate over how to treat the flu-like illness intensified. Medical experts from Singapore and Canada -- both with SARS outbreaks -- have questioned Hong Kong's use of a drug treatment.

Hong Kong says most SARS victims have shown good responses to a combination of the antiviral medicine ribavirin and steroids. But global health officials have doubts and doctors from Singapore and Canada said late Friday they have not seen good results from those drugs.

Dr. Arthur Chern, of Singapore's Health Ministry, said ribavirin does not alter the course of the disease and only some patients seem to benefit from steroids.

Speaking to the seminar by videoconference, Dr. Donald Low of Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto questioned whether ribavirin might also be harming SARS patients and said he may stop administering the drug.

In Hong Kong, Health Director Dr. Margaret Chan declined to say whether the territory was winning its fight against SARS, in light of the lowest number of new cases since at least late March.

"We hope the trend will continue and move downward, but we are dealing with a new virus, a new disease," Chan said.