The Chinese government sacked its health minister and another senior official yesterday in an attempt to establish credibility for its handling of the Sars health crisis as the death toll continued to mount.
Officials also conceded that the problem in Beijing was nearly 10 times worse than had been admitted, and ordered the cancellation of the week-long May Day holiday in an effort to halt the spread of infection from severe acute respiratory syndrome.
There were also concerns in Hong Kong and Toronto that more young, otherwise healthy adults were falling victim to Sars, fuelling fears that the virus had mutated into a more virulent form.
More than 200 people in seven countries have died, while 3 800 people have been infected worldwide.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has been increasingly angry that China has been covering up the scale of the problem. The southern province of Guangdong was probably the site of the first outbreak of Sars as long ago as November, but authorities did not notify the WHO of 305 cases of ”atypical pneumonia”, including five deaths, until mid-February.
A worldwide health alert was only issued in mid-March as the disease appeared in Vietnam and Hong Kong.
China’s deputy health minister, Gao Qiang, said yesterday that the correct number of Sars cases in Beijing was 339, not 37, and added that there were more than 400 suspected cases in the capital. WHO officials have questioned China’s definition of this category.
The new numbers raise the cumulative total in China, not counting Hong Kong, to 1,807, including 79 deaths. But two-thirds of Chinese provinces have not reported a single case, despite the speed at which Sars has appeared in other parts of the world.
Beijing’s belated honesty comes after China’s new leaders, President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, intervened last week as foreign criticism grew.
The ruling central committee yesterday removed the health minister, Zhang Wenkang, who had insisted the crisis was ”under control”, and the Beijing mayor, Meng Xuenong, from their Communist party positions, essentially sacking them from their government jobs.
Gao, the deputy minister, stressed that from now on ”under-reporting, late reporting or failure to report” Sars cases would not be allowed. Explaining the discrepancy in figures, he blamed his ministry for ”not being well-prepared for public health emergencies” and admitted that ”the epidemic control system is comparatively weak”.
Gao also promised aid for China’s poor, especially in rural areas, who might avoid hospitals for fear of medical expenses. If the outbreak spread in the countryside, he said, ”the consequences would be grim”.
Beijing is now the third hardest hit area after Guangdong and Hong Kong, where the known death toll is 88. Fourteen people have died in Canada.
Several boarding schools are insisting that pupils returning from affected parts of Asia undergo 10 days of quarantine.
Professor Angus Nicoll, director of the Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre at the health protection agency, said: ”We understand the anxiety there is in schools but this isn’t necessarily a policy we would support. Looking at the pattern of this infection, it is actually quite uncommon in young children.” – Guardian Unlimited Â