WHO adds Toronto and Beijing to travel warning

SWITZERLAND: The World Health Organisation has extended its SARS travel warning to Beijing, China's Shanxi province and Canada…

SWITZERLAND: The World Health Organisation has extended its SARS travel warning to Beijing, China's Shanxi province and Canada's business capital Toronto to try to halt the global spread of the deadly virus.

The advisory to postpone non-essential travel to the three areas will be in effect for at least three weeks, twice the disease's maximum incubation period, according to Mr David Heymann, WHO's director of communicable diseases.

On April 4th, the United Nations agency warned international travellers against going to the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, where SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, is believed to have begun, and to Hong Kong.

"We now have these areas which have a high magnitude of disease, a great risk of transmission locally and have also been exporting cases to other countries," Mr Heymann said.

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In a statement posted on its website, www.who.int, WHO said after assessing SARS outbreaks in Beijing, Shanxi province and Toronto, it was "recommending as a measure of precaution that persons planning to travel to these destinations consider postponing all but essential travel".

SARS has killed at least 251 people worldwide and has infected more than 4,200 since it appeared in China late last year. The virus had been spread around the globe by airline passengers.

Beijing, a city of 14 million, has reported almost 700 SARS cases and 35 deaths out of 106 countrywide. Until last week, officials had admitted to only 37 infections in the city. Shanxi, which lies west of the capital, has the third-highest number of cases in China, 157 cases with seven deaths, according to health ministry figures.

A WHO investigative team is in Shanghai, where the health ministry has reported two cases.

"Our team in China has clearly indicated that they feel there are probably more cases in Shanghai than have been reported," Mr Heymann said.

Canada has reported 16 deaths out of 324 suspected or likely cases and more than one third of those are in Ontario province which includes Toronto. Toronto's outbreak continues to grow and has affected groups outside the initial risk groups of hospital workers, families, visitors and other close person-to-person contacts, according to WHO.

In Rome, WHO's director-general, Ms Gro Harlem Brundtland, said every country was potentially at risk from SARS and tough public health measures were essential to contain the disease. "We already have so many cases in so many countries that the risk is there for any country.

- (Reuters)