Sars fears prompt violence

Fears of Sars led to attacks on quarantine centres in rural China yesterday and forced Italy to break ranks with the rest of Europe by introducing obligatory checks for the virus on passengers arriving at airports.

Beijing, the worst hit city in the world, reported 48 new cases and two deaths yesterday, the lowest daily increase in weeks, and the number of new cases in Hong Kong fell to its lowest one-day rise since the outbreak began.

But Taiwan had its biggest single-day recent increase with 18 new cases. It also quarantined almost 500 people in a Taipei public housing project.

Although European health ministers had agreed that passengers arriving from Sars-infected countries should fill in questionnaires, Italy felt stronger measures were needed.

The Italian Health Ministry announced it would quarantine anyone suspected of infection and would make checks on all passengers arriving from high-risk countries such as China until the global alarm over Sars was over.

Since the first outbreak of Sars in southern China late last year, the virus has killed 514 people, infected 7,362 and spread to about 30 countries.

World Health Organisation (WHO) officials say China is the key to containing the global spread of the virulent virus, which causes fever, chills and respiratory problems and is particularly dangerous for older people. "Right now, as you know, the biggest problem is in big cities like Beijing and also in Guangdong," WHO Director General nominee Jong-Wook Lee told reporters in Beijing.

"Of course it's spreading to other provinces, but not that big numbers."

With 70 per cent of its 1.3 billion people living in the countryside, the Chinese government is doing all it can to prevent the spread beyond its cities.

A team of WHO officials visited hospitals and an epidemic prevention centre in a rural area of Hebei province, 120 kilometres south of Beijing, the Xinhua news agency said.

But the fear of infection is so worrying that police detained people in rural areas of the massive municipality of Chongqing after villagers repeatedly ransacked quarantine sites, according to officials.

There was also unrest in Beijing where about 60 people protested against plans to set up a fever station at a hospital in their neighbourhood. It was the first known Sars demonstration in the capital.

On China's border with Russia, a regional health official lifted a 10-day Sars quarantine of 80 hotel guests after doctors confirmed none had the virus.

The 65 Chinese and 15 Russians had been quarantined after a 25-year-old guest at Blagoveshchensk's Zarya hotel was taken away in an ambulance. He has since become Russia's first suspected Sars case.

"Nobody packed their bags and ran. It is all quiet," the hotel administrator told Reuters by telephone.

"Though there have been no new bookings either." Hoteliers in Greece decided not to take any chances of housing guests with Sars. After meeting with health and tourism officials they decided they would take no bookings from travellers from infected countries.

"Hotels will have to avoid taking reservations from visitors coming from areas the WHO has classified as high risk," George Tsakiris, president of the Attica Hotel Association, said.

Although there have been no cases of Sars in Greece, Health Minister Costas Stephanis recommended that the tourism industry avoid hosting tour groups from areas considered centres of Sars - China, Hong Kong, the Philippines and Taiwan.

Scientists who studied the genetic sequences of samples of the Sars virus - a new member of the coronavirus family - discovered it doesn't change quickly, which could make it easier to develop a vaccine.