The doctor who first identified the deadly flu-like virus that has claimed the lives of 54 people worldwide and infected thousands of others, fell victim to the disease and died yesterday.
Dr Carlo Urbani, who worked for the World Health Organisation in Vietnam, identified the outbreak of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) in an American businessman admitted to hospital in Hanoi. But the virus, which is fast-moving and creates severe breathing difficulties, also infected the Italian father of three.
A fulsome tribute was paid to him yesterday by his colleague, Pascale Brudon, who said: ‘Carlo was the one who very quickly saw that this was something strange. When people became very concerned in the hospital, he was there every day, collecting samples, talking to the staff and strengthening infection control procedures.â€
The WHO issued a statement praising Urbani (46) an expert in communicable diseases.
‘Because of his early detection of Sars, global surveillance was heightened and many new cases have been identified and isolated before they infected hospital staff,†the statement read.
But despite the fact that the virus has been identified, it continues to spread rapidly across the Far East.
More than 450 cases are presently being treated in Hong Kong, including 100 new cases in the past three days. At least 60 of these have come from a single building in Kowloon Bay, raising new questions about the way the virus spreads.
Hong Kong has closed schools for a million students for 10 days, but some doctors say this should be extended to a month.
Normal daily life has changed beyond recognition for residents as they avoid restaurants, theatres and taking taxis, and resort to wearing face masks and even chemical protection suits on the streets. The Rolling Stones have cancelled a planned tour of Hong Kong and China over fear of the illness.
Beijing has just agreed to publish daily updates on the spread of the disease, but critics in Hong Kong say the Chinese move has come two months too late to save lives. Vital information on the virus – including the speed with which it spread in hospitals treating patients – was not initially released by China. Dozens of medical staff were then infected by the virus when it reached Hong Kong.
Hong Kong was infected initially by Liu Jianlun, a Guangdong doctor who arrived over a month ago and was quickly admitted to the Kwong Wah hospital.
Liu, described as ‘patient zero†by Hong Kong investigators, unwittingly communicated the virus to fellow guests in the lift or lobby of the hotel where he stayed before going to hospital.
This in turn led to the spread of the virus by air travellers to Canada, Singapore and Vietnam. Other cases have been reported in Taiwan and one has been confirmed in the US.
Many of Liu’s colleagues in the provincial capital of Guangzhou were already infected, indicating the seriousness of the disease, but officials did not pass on any information on the outbreak to Hong Kong.
Liu warned that he was highly infectious and died in isolation on 4 March, but by then 70 medical staff and 17 medical students were already infected by the virus.
At this stage China still claimed that the outbreak in Guangdong, which began in November, had been successfully dealt with – of some 300 cases, it claimed only five had resulted in deaths.
But now Chinese officials have admitted that by the end of February there were 31 deaths from nearly 800 cases in Guangdong. They also admit to 10 cases including three deaths in Beijing, and four cases in Shanxi province, but deny that it has been found in Shanghai.
The virus, which has taken public health experts from across the world by surprise, carries an overall death rate of around five per cent of its victims. The condition of patients who survive varies widely from light symptoms to severe distress requiring the use of artificial respirators.
Worryingly, it is possible that the virus, originally known as a typical pneumonia, may have jumped the species gap. The WHO said last week in Beijing that dogs, cats, rodents or birds may have spread the virus.
The Chinese authorities are habitually reticent about crises of this kind, claiming that this is necessary to avoid alarm and ‘maintain social orderâ€. – Guardian Unlimited