Two Chinese people suspected of having SARS were confirmed as having had the flu-like disease, but one has recovered and the other was in stable condition, China's health ministry said yesterday.
The cases -- a 20-year-old waitress who worked in an exotic game restaurant and a 35-year-old businessman -- bring the total number of confirmed new SARS cases in China to three.
Both cases were in the southern province of Guangdong, where SARS first emerged in late 2002 before spreading to more than 30 countries, infecting about 8,000 people and killing nearly 800.
The waitress was released from hospital yesterday, and none of the people under medical observation for being in contact with her had shown any signs of SARS.
None of the businessman's associates had shown any SARS-like symptoms, either.
In a statement on its Web site (www.moh.gov.cn), the Health Ministry said health professionals must be on guard to prevent an outbreak during the week-long Lunar New Year holiday.
"It has not been very infectious and the victims have recovered quickly, but we cannot become careless or relax our vigilance," a ministry spokesman said in the statement.
Zhong Nanshan, the head of the Guangzhou Respiratory Disease Research Institute, said the next few weeks would be critical to controlling the disease but that he did not expect an outbreak similar to last year's.
"Of these three people, transmissibility was very weak and the symptoms were very light," Zhong told Hong Kong's Cable Television.
"I think the situation will not be like last year, whether in Guangdong or Hong Kong," Zhong said.
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
A US federal judge on Tuesday ordered US President Donald Trump’s administration to halt efforts to shut down Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Asia and Middle East Broadcasting Networks, the news broadcasts of which are funded by the government to export US values to the world. US District Judge Royce Lamberth, who is overseeing six lawsuits from employees and contractors affected by the shutdown of the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), ordered the administration to “take all necessary steps” to restore employees and contractors to their positions and resume radio, television and online news broadcasts. USAGM placed more than 1,000
RSS