Government Asks Beijing to Come Clean Over Outbreak of Disease in South China

Mar 27, 2003, Page 6

The government has urged Beijing to provide more information about a deadly mystery disease that may have originated in China and is spreading across the world.

The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said it was especially worried about China's possible link with the outbreak of the illness, a form of atypical pneumonia, because millions of Taiwanese visit China each year. So far, only five suspected cases of the disease have been reported here.

Experts suspect the illness, called severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), is related to an earlier outbreak in southern China.

An official in Guangzhou said yesterday that 31 people had died of atypical pneumonia by the end of February and that 792 cases had been reported in the province.

There have been about 500 cases reported elsewhere and at least 17 people have died.

China had previously disclosed that five people were killed by the pneumonia outbreak in Guangdong Province, which began in November, but critics have charged that the Chinese authorities were not providing a complete picture.

A World Health Organization (WHO) team is in Beijing trying to determine whether the atypical pneumonia outbreak was linked to the global spread of SARS.

A WHO official in Geneva said Tuesday that the experts had sought permission to get into Guangdong Province but it had not immediately been granted.

The WHO called on Beijing to be more cooperative, although a spokesman for the WHO team in China said yesterday the experts had not asked to go to Guangdong.

The MAC issued a report Tuesday night that criticized Beijing for providing little information about the sickness.

"Because China is not sharing information, the source of the contagion has not been clear and the period of risk for the outbreak has been lengthened," the report said. "This hasn't helped us protect ourselves from an epidemic."     
  
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