Taiwan acts as virus scare grips

Taiwan acts as virus scare grips

Many people are buying surgical masks

Taiwan is considering suspending its limited links with China, to try to control the rapid spread of a new form of pneumonia.

Prime Minister Yu Shyi-kun said a decision on a temporary suspension could be made by Monday.

Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian has accused China - the suspected origin of the disease - of concealing the extent of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and so hastening its spread.

Taiwan officially regards the syndrome as an "infectious disease" subject to quarantine laws, and has banned visits by civil servants to affected areas - including mainland China, Hong Kong and Vietnam.

This virus is unlike any known human or animal member of the virus family

World Health Organisation

Taiwan's Centre for Disease Control puts the number of local probable cases at 12, most of them reporting the illness following trips to mainland China and Hong Kong.

No deaths have been blamed on the infection in Taiwan so far.

But at least 200 more people have been confined to their homes for two weeks by health authorities, bringing the total number of confined people to 500.

Fears of further transmissions have now prompted Taiwan's proposal to cancel the limited semi-direct links with China.

Direct transport links were severed 1949 at the end of the civil war.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned of the seriousness of the outbreak.

"This virus is unlike any known human or animal member of the virus family," it said in a statement.

MYSTERY BUG

54 people dead and 1,500 infected worldwide

1,500 quarantined in Singapore

Originated in southern China

Cases showing up in Europe and the United States

Spread by international travellers

As concern spreads, the WHO announced that the doctor who identified the bug has himself died of the disease.

Dr Carlo Urbani, an Italian expert on communicable diseases, had identified SARS in an American businessman admitted to hospital in Vietnam in February.

At least 54 people are known to have died of the disease, and more than 1,500 people have been infected worldwide.

Hong Kong, which reported some of the first evidence of the disease, recorded 60 fresh cases of infection on Saturday.

The government has decided to close the city's schools for a week, while thousands of people are wearing surgical masks when they leave their houses.

Hong Kong's health secretary said more people would fall ill, despite the fact that more than 1,000 people had already been quarantined.

Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore are all confining people to their homes if they have been exposed to the disease.

Canada infected

Canada has the highest caseload outside Asia, with 100 possible cases in the province of Ontario.

Three people have died there, two Ontario hospitals have been closed, and about 1,800 people have been urged to go into voluntary quarantine.

On sale now, surgical masks

Until now, nearly all of the North American cases were limited to hospital personnel and travellers from Hong Kong, Hanoi, Singapore and continental China.

"As of today, there are approximately 100 probable and suspect cases across the province," Ontario health officials said on Saturday.

In China, where the outbreak has killed at least 30 people, the authorities are enforcing a media blackout, apparently concerned that news of the disease will cause panic.

Chinese authorities have come under widespread criticism for their secretive handling of the infection.

So far they have not granted permission for a group of WHO doctors to visit the south of the country, where China's first cases of the virus appeared.