Latest Count of SARS Virus Victims...and it is rising

Read here on the resilience of SARS Virus that is confounding scientists around the world.

Read here on scientists' concern on SARS Virus mutating

Read here how Singapore tackles SARS

Read here how China tackles SARS

Read here status of SARS epidemic as of mid April 2003

As of Monday (5th May 2003)



Worldwide:

• Infected 27 countries and caused 435 deaths.
  
• The number of cases of infection now stands at 6,234 people

China:

• 323 new cases reported with 16 additional deaths. Beijing capital reported having additional 69 cases.
  
• Total now stands at 4,280 cases and 206 deaths.

Hongkong:

• 16 new cases and 8 additional deaths
  
• Total now stands at 1,637 cases and 187 deaths.

Taiwan

• 16 new infections.
  
• Total now stands at 116 cases and 8 deaths.

Singapore

• One new infection.
  
• Total now stands at 204 cases and 26 deaths.

Malaysia

• One new infection.
  
• Total now stands at 7 cases and 2 deaths.

The lone SARS case in South Africa died.

The United States reported seven new cases of the disease, and 54 probable cases but has no reported SARS deaths.

Other SARS- Related News

World Health Organisation experts are still mystified how SARS could jump thousands of kilometres from southern China and Hong Kong to Beijing while barely touching anywhere in between. The Chinese capital has been hard hit by SARS, already overshadowing southern Guangdong province and Hong Kong. One big question facing WHO experts studying the epidemic is why vast regions in central China, south of the capital, have barely suffered from the virus that originated in Guangdong and ravaged neighbouring Hong Kong some 1,900km away."Right now, without the full data we just can't say," Alan Schnur, head of WHO's communicable disease office in Beijing, told AFP."It could be that some places are just lucky, or maybe there has been a lack of reporting in the provinces and the surveillance system is incomplete.

The University of California at Berkeley will turn away new students from SARS -infected China, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong this summer in what is believed to be the first such move by a major U.S. university to prevent the spread of the virus.

China's borders with Kazakhstan closed. The Kazakh government has instructed that all regular air, railway and motor communications with China will be suspended until May 20, 2003. Urgent steps to be taken to bring home Kazakh students in China as well as the staff of the Kazakh Embassy.

Villagers in Xiandie in coastal Zhejiang province smashed and overturned police and government cars, demanding that patients isolated in a poorly equipped office building be moved away. "They are furious because they don't want the sick people so close to their homes," said an official who gave only her surname, Zhuang.

Several biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, the federal government and researchers in Canada and Hong Kong have filed SARS-related patent applications, claiming ownership of everything from bits of genetic material to the virus itself. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention claims ownership of the virus and its entire genetic content. Rather than trying to profit if such a patent were awarded, the CDC says its application is to prevent others from monopolizing the field. "The whole purpose of the patent is to prevent folks from controlling the technology," said CDC spokesman Llelwyn Grant. "This is being done to give the industry and other researchers reasonable access to the samples."

Beijing today ordered schools to remain closed for an additional 14 days as part of its continued drastic efforts to slow the spread of the disease.The poorer provinces, meanwhile, accounted for a large chunk of China's new cases, underlying concerns that the disease is spreading in the vast interior of this country, where the medical system is a shambles after years of neglect and budget cuts. Inner Mongolia reported 35 more cases.

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