By Tan Ee Lyn
HONG KONG (Reuters) - An expert panel probing Hong Kong's SARS (news -
web sites) epidemic said on Thursday there were significant
shortcomings in the government's initial response to the outbreak of
the deadly virus, but did not single out anyone for blame.
Under intense public and media pressure to quit, Health Minister Yeoh
Eng-kiong apologised to families of those who died. Yeoh said he had
seriously considered resigning, but added that the community would be
better served if he stayed.
"We need to learn from this costly expereince so we can react a lot
better the next time...it would be better if I stay," Yeoh said,
choking back tears before a packed news conference.
Nearly 300 people died of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome when the
disease spread in Hong Kong this year.
The government-commissioned panel highlighted Hong Kong's lack of
preparedness for an attack of that scale and inadequacy in following
up rumours of a mysterious epidemic in China's neighbouring Guangdong
province late last year.
It also underlined a lack of communication between the Department of
Health and public and private hospitals and doctors, and said some
chains of command were ineffective.
The virus was carried from southern China to Hong Kong in February,
eventually infecting nearly 1,800 people in the city. It was spread
around the world by travellers, killing more than 800 people and
infecting more than 8,400.
"There were significant shortcomings of system performance during the
early phase of the epidemic when little was known about the disease or
its cause, some of which were aggravated by key personnel becoming ill
with SARS," Professor Sian Griffiths, panel co-chairman, told a news
conference.
Medical experts say SARS could re-emerge this winter.
Although the government has started to put contingency measures in
place, doctors say Hong Kong's health system is far from ready to
handle another epidemic.
ANGRY REACTION?
Representatives of the panel repeatedly defended Yeoh, saying they did
not find him or anyone else culpable.
In the initial stages of the epidemic, Yeoh denied there was an
outbreak of the disease in the community at large although the number
of suspected cases was rising. Media later accused him of playing down
the severity of the outbreak and giving people the perception that it
was not a major threat.
The expert panel said Yeoh was "technically correct" as there was no
evidence then that the disease was spreading.
The panel's decision not to hold anyone responsible is expected to
trigger angry reactions in the community, and legislators are expected
to press for an independent inquiry.
Tim Pang of the Patients' Rights Association said families of those
who died were incensed.
"So many people died and it's ridiculous that no one is to blame.
There are so many burning questions," Pang said.
"The report said these government agencies did not communicate
properly with each other, but can nobody be blamed?"
Families of at least nine dead victims were firming up plans to sue
the government, he added.
The government's handling of the outbreak was one of several issues
that brought 500,000 protesters on to the streets in July to vent
their anger with the Beijing-backed government, triggering Hong Kong's
biggest political crisis in years.
The panel made 46 recommendations to prepare the city for disasters,
including setting up contingency plans in collaboration with
neighbouring areas, communication with the public and ensuring health
personnel were alert to dangers.
Yeoh said the government would try to implement the recommendations as
soon as possible.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=834&ncid=731&e=10&u=/nm/20031002/wl_india_nm/india_131005
mighty_nation@yahoo.com (Mighty Land) wrote in message news:<31f7b4f7.0310010951.1f33ba78@posting.google.com>...
> By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
>
> WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A genetic susceptibility may explain why SARS
> raged last year in southeast Asia and nowhere else in the world
> outside of Toronto, Taiwanese researchers reported this week.
>
> They found a certain variant in an immune system gene called human
> leukocyte antigen, or HLA, made patients in Taiwan much more likely to
> develop life-threatening symptoms of SARS.
>
> The gene variant is common in people of southern Chinese descent, the
> team at Mackay Memorial Hospital in Taipei reported.
>
> Their finding, published in an online journal, BMC Medical Genetics,
> must be confirmed by independent researchers. But the Taiwanese team
> said the genetics could explain the puzzling distribution of SARS last
> year.
>
> "After the outbreak of SARS coronavirus infection in the Guangdong
> Province of China, it was surprising to observe that the spreading of
> the disease was mostly confined among southern Asian populations (the
> Hong Kong people, Vietnamese, Singaporeans and Taiwanese)," they
> wrote.
>
> Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome first arose in Guangdong last
> November. It spread to Hong Kong, Vietnam, Beijing and Singapore, and
> was transported around the world by airliner. SARS eventually was
> suspected of affecting 8,098 people and killing 774, according to the
> World Health Organization's latest figures.
>
> The flu-like disease is caused by a virus from a family known as
> coronaviruses. They cause diseases in livestock and some cases of the
> common cold in people.
>
> The SARS coronavirus is unique genetically but similar versions have
> been found in animals sold in Chinese food markets.
>
> Marie Lin, Chun-Hsiung Huang and colleagues examined the HLA gene in
> 37 cases of probable SARS, 28 fever patients excluded later as
> probable SARS, and 101 non-infected health care workers who were
> exposed or possibly exposed to SARS coronavirus.
>
> "An additional control set of 190 normal healthy unrelated Taiwanese
> was also used in the analysis," they wrote in their report.
>
> They found that patients with severe cases of SARS were likely to have
> a version of the HLA gene called HLA-B 4601.
>
> They noted that no indigenous Taiwanese, who make up about 1.5 percent
> of the population, ever developed SARS. HLA-B 4601 is not seen among
> indigenous Taiwanese, they noted.
>
> "Interestingly, (HLA-B 4601) is also seldom seen in European
> populations," they added.
>
> http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=570&ncid=753&e=1&u=/nm/20031001/sc_nm/sars_gene_dc
>
> > By Ed Edelson
> > HealthDay Reporter
> >
> > THURSDAY, Sept. 4 (HealthDayNews) -- It was just your typical
> > live-animal food market in Shenzhen, China, with a palm civet here, a
> > raccoon-dog there on display for the benefit of chefs, but it provided
> > an important hint about the way an innocuous virus that lives
> > peacefully in the human respiratory tract became the deadly virus
> > SARS, researchers say.
> >
> > Swabs from two Himalayan palm civets, members of a cat-like family,
> > turned up a coronavirus resembling one that is carried by many humans
> > but does no harm, scientists at the University of Hong Kong report in
> > the Sept. 5 issue of Science. The virus was also found in a
> > raccoon-dog and a ferret badger from the same market, and in some
> > employees at the market.
> >
> > Although the workers showed no signs of illness, the discovery
> > "indicates a route of interspecies transmission" that created the
> > severe acute respiratory syndrome virus, the report says.
> >
> > "The concept here is that we know that coronaviruses are mutable,"
> > says Dr. Philip Tierno, director of clinical microbiology and
> > immunology at New York University Medical Center and author of The
> > Secret Life of Germs.. "But it was not known previously that animal
> > and human strains could recombine to become more profoundly infective
> > that the human strains we knew in the past."
> >
> > The animal market was a logical place to look, the Hong Kong
> > researchers explain, because the first cases of SARS, reported last
> > November, occurred in restaurant workers from that region who handled
> > wild mammals regarded as exotic foods. The Shenzhen market had a
> > variety of species, held individually in small wire cages, that came
> > from different regions of China.
> >
> > "The Chinese lay out animals in open markets and sell for food animals
> > we wouldn't eat, and that cohort together," Tierno says. "You have
> > humans working in close proximity with these animals. If an animal is
> > slaughtered, viruses can spread from animal to human."
> >
> > Genetic analysis shows a family resemblance between the human and
> > animal coronaviruses, the report says, although the human SARS virus
> > is missing a large segment found in the animal virus.
> >
> > The discovery indicates that the open-air markets are places where
> > SARS-like animal viruses can "amplify and transmit to new hosts,
> > including humans, and this is critically important from the public
> > health point of view," the researchers write.
> >
> > But it isn't clear that any of the virus-carrying animals in that
> > market were the original source of the virus, they say. It is
> > conceivable that they were all infected "from another, as yet unknown
> > animal source, which is in fact the true reservoir in nature."
> >
> > Much more work in markets, in the wild and in laboratories "will help
> > to better understand the animal reservoirs in nature and the
> > inter-species events that led to the origin of the SARS outbreak," the
> > researchers say.
> >
> > Meanwhile, a report by a panel of Central Intelligence Agency experts
> > warns that while the SARS outbreak has been contained after infecting
> > more than 8,400 people worldwide and causing about 815 deaths, the
> > disease could re-emerge this winter, the time when respiratory
> > diseases are most likely to spread.
> >
> > "SARS has not been eradicated," says a report prepared by the National
> > Intelligence Council to CIA Director George G. Tenet. "We remain
> > vulnerable."
> >
> > If the disease takes hold in Asian or African countries with
> > inadequate health-care systems, it could cause more deaths than the
> > first outbreak, the experts warn.
> >
> > A quick response to contain the disease is necessary because
> > "currently, SARS has no vaccine, no effective treatment and no
> > reliable point-of-care diagnostic test," they say.
> >
> > The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it plans to
> > have a better SARS surveillance system in place this year.
> >
> > More information
> >
> > Everything you need to know about SARS is available from the U.S.
> > Centers for Disease Control(http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/sars) and
> > Prevention or the World Health
> > Organization(http://www.who.int/csr/sars/en/index.html).
> >
> > Related Articles
> >
> > New research suggests SARS jumped from animals to humans in
> > China(AFP): http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1508&ncid=1624&e=2&u=/afp/20030905/hl_afp/health_china_sars_030905123249
> >
> > SARS Linked to Virus Found in Animals(AP):
> > http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=6&u=/ap/20030904/ap_on_he_me/sars_virus_2
> >
> > Sars-like viruses found in China(BBC):
> > http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3081478.stm
> >
> > Scientists unveil 15-minute SARS test amid fears of epidemic's
> > comeback: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1508&ncid=1624&e=3&u=/afp/20030905/hl_afp/singapore_health_sars_030905120736 |