Medical researchers around the world were desperately trying on yesterday to identify a mysterious respiratory disease which has left at least nine people dead and sparked a global medical alert.
As airlines stepped-up surveillance of passengers in a bid to curb the spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) the Geneva-based WHO put laboratories in 10 countries on the case.
At least four deaths -- two in Canada, one in Hong Kong and one in Vietnam -- have been attributed to the disease, which has been described as an atypical pneumonia or influenza-like illness.
Besides the four confirmed deaths, health officials also strongly suspect SARS was behind five deaths last month in China's Guangdong Province, where the disease may have originated in November and peaked last month.
A total of 305 people were infected in Guangdong while there have been some 200 confirmed or suspected cases of SARS in the latest outbreak, according to a toll compiled from WHO figures and local sources.
China said yesterday the outbreak in Guangdong had been basically controlled.
"The related reports put out by the Ministry of Health and the concerned departments in Guangdong said the atypical pneumonia that first appeared in Guangdong in November last year has been basically controlled," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Kong Quan (
Cases or suspected cases have been reported in nearly a dozen countries with Hong Kong (111), Vietnam (51) and Singapore (23) among the worst affected.
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