Cingles Info

Carrier of SARS Made 7 Flights Before Treatment
By KEITH BRADSHER
HONG KONG, April 10 - Health officials announced here tonight that a man
infected with a new respiratory disease had flown from Hong Kong to Munich,
Barcelona, Frankfurt, London, Munich again, Frankfurt again and then back to
Hong Kong before entering a hospital.
The Hong Kong Department of Health appealed for passengers and air crews from
all seven flights to consult medical professionals. A health department
spokeswoman said it was not yet known whether the man, who is 48, had infected
anyone else on the flights with the disease - severe acute respiratory syndrome,
or SARS.
All the flights were on Lufthansa. The airline said in a statement tonight that
it had disinfected all the planes and was contacting the air crews and
passengers. It said the chances of anyone's having become infected during the
flights were "very remote."
Airlines have been saying that the filters aboard modern planes do a good job of
removing viruses from the air. But according to the health department here, at
least 13 people have fallen ill with SARS so far after they shared a flight from
Hong Kong to Beijing last month with an elderly man who had been infected with
the disease while visiting his brother in a hospital here.
Tonight's appeal for the Lufthansa crews and passengers to come forward follows
nearly a dozen such calls by health officials and by airlines operating flights
in and out of Hong Kong. Travelers have continued to board planes while feeling
ill despite strenuous warnings from the World Health Organization and national
health agencies that they not do so.
In the case that was announced tonight, the man flew on Lufthansa Flight 731 on
March 30 from Hong Kong to Munich, and traveled the next day on Flight 4316 to
Barcelona, according to an itinerary that was released here by the health
department. He developed symptoms while in Barcelona.
The man then traveled on Flight 4303 to Frankfurt on April 2 and on to London
the same day on Flight 4520. He went to Munich the next day on Flight 4671, then
headed for Frankfurt on April 4 on Flight 265. He connected with Flight 738 the
same day back to Hong Kong, arriving on April 5.
The man checked into a hospital here on April 8 and was confirmed today to have
SARS.
Doctors do not yet know how infectious, if at all, people are in the early
stages of SARS. Increasingly, doctors suspect that some people may be able to
transmit the disease before the symptoms become evident. But Hong Kong's health
secretary, Dr. Yeoh Eng-kiong, warned tonight that doctors here had become
infected from people who had not yet shown the full symptoms identified by the
World Health Organization.
Dr. Yeoh suggested that even someone with just diarrhea could be infectious.
The sick man's nationality was a mystery tonight. The health department's
statement did not specify it, while the airline's statement described the man as
"Chinese." A Lufthansa official said the company had been told by the health
department only that the man was Chinese. The department spokeswoman, in turn,
said that the man seemed to be of Chinese descent but that the agency had been
unable to determine his nationality.
"He travels a lot," the spokeswoman said. "We don't know his passport."
Hong Kong, which is a special administrative region of China, still issues
separate passports from mainland China, a legacy of its days as a British crown
colony. Officials here sometimes refer to people as Chinese if they are from
Taiwan, which Beijing regards as a renegade province, or if they are people of
any nationality who happen to be of Chinese descent.
The infected man's travels could not come at a worse time for Hong Kong, as
countries have begun limiting the entry of people traveling from here or
imposing quarantines on them.
Malaysia stopped issuing visas today to practically all holders of passports
from Hong Kong and mainland China. Cathay Pacific Airways, Hong Kong's main
airline, said tonight that it had suspended all flights to Kuala Lumpur, the
Malaysian capital, because there were few passengers.
Regina Ip, Hong Kong's security secretary, met with Malaysia's consul general
here to protest the decision. "There is no reason why the mobility of Hong Kong
residents who do not have any close contact with infected persons should be
restricted," she said afterward.
Singapore also imposed a 10-day quarantine on all foreign workers earning less
than $24,000 a year who have recently been in a SARS-affected country or
territory. Employers must pay costs of the quarantine. Singapore has been trying
for years to lure high-income employees in financial services and other
lucrative industries, while making it harder for lower-income workers to go
there and do jobs that less-educated Singaporeans might otherwise do.
Hong Kong's economy depends heavily on its role as Asia's transportation hub,
the place from which businesses can control and coordinate factories and other
businesses spread across the continent. Hong Kong has the world's busiest
container port for sea freight, the world's busiest airport for international
cargo shipments and what was, until recently, Asia's busiest airport in terms of
international air passenger departures.
But the availability of flights here is withering as many governments have
warned citizens not to visit and many businesses have ordered their employees
not to travel here.
Cathay Pacific has canceled a quarter of its daily flights here. Dragonair, an
affiliated carrier that dominates the skies between Hong Kong and cities in
mainland China, has stopped operating almost half its flights. Continental
Airlines canceled its daily nonstop flight from Hong Kong to New York this week
for lack of passengers.
The airport authority here said that a third of all flights originally scheduled
to operate today had been canceled for various reasons.
Health officials have said that the virus causing SARS can probably survive no
more than several hours outside the body, so that air and sea cargo shipments
from Hong Kong, as well as mail, do not pose a risk to recipients.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/11/science/sciencespecial/11SARS.html?th
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