Leaders from south-east Asia joined China’s premier for an emergency Sars summit today while three more countries announced their first cases of the infectious disease.
Mongolia, South Korea and New Zealand joined the list of countries with people infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome, while hard-hit China and Taiwan both established funds to combat the disease.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) believes the incidence of Sars has peaked in many places, but fears the crisis is worsening in China.
Police in Chagugang, a village 60 miles south-east of Beijing, said protesters there had ransacked a school amid fears that it was to be used as a Sars isolation ward. Officials later denied the rumours.
Meanwhile, the Beijing Times reported that health workers in the capital were tired and demoralised and that some hospitals treating Sars patients were running low of drugs and face masks.
In New York, Asian-American businesses called for help to lure tourists back to the city’s Chinatown that has been in a slump since the September 11 2001 attacks against the nearby World Trade Centre, and is now suffering again because of Sars fears.
The worldwide toll from Sars was at least 333 deaths and more than 5 100 infections in more than 20 countries.
For weeks China has been criticised for not revealing the true extent of the disease for months after its first appeared there in November and then was spread internationally by air travelers via Hong Kong.
In an unprecedented move, Premier Wen Jiabao came to Bangkok to brief leaders from the 10-member Association of South-east Asian Nations about efforts to combat the disease, which has killed 139 in China.
Also at the meeting was Tung Chee-hwa, the chief executive of Hong Kong, which has reported 138 deaths.
”By reaching across borders for common solutions, Asean is projecting the strong message that we are prepared to close ranks with the world to fight this threat to the end,” Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said in a statement.
The summit is the first high-level international meeting to discuss severe acute respiratory syndrome, which cost the region’s economy and tourism sectors dearly.
China has proposed setting up an Asian fund to study and devise preventive measures against Sars, and pledged initial money of £800,000, the meeting’s host Thailand said.
Separately, Taiwan announced it would establish its own 50 billion new Taiwan dollar emergency fund to tackle Sars and to help patients and industry there.
In Singapore, six public hospitals banned most visitors in an attempt to control the spread of Sars. At the Alexandra Hospital, families of patients were encouraged to use videophones so they could have virtual visits.
The health ministry said 46 of the island’s 198 Sars cases were hospital visitors. Eight of those died, according to the Straits Times newspaper. – Guardian Unlimited Â