Fears grow that mystery illness is spread by air travel HONG KONG (AP) =97 Adding to fears that a deadly flu-like illness is being= =20 spread by air travelers, Hong Kong officials said Tuesday nine tourists=20 apparently came down with the deadly disease after another passenger=20 infected them on a flight to Beijing. The World Health Organization=20 insisted air travel is safe but said its scientists are investigating each= =20 case to make sure the disease is not spread through ventilation. In recent= =20 weeks severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, has spread beyond=20 hospitals, where dozens of health care workers became infected, into at=20 least one workplace, to air travelers and some schools have been closed as= =20 a precaution. Hong Kong officials said the nine tourists became sick after= =20 a mainland Chinese man with SARS infected them on a March 15 Air China=20 flight to Beijing. If SARS can be more easily spread through the air =97=20 rather than by close contact with infected people who cough or sneeze =97 it= =20 could force travel and other restrictions to contain the disease. "We would want to be sure that it was people sitting next to that person=20 and not the ventilation system in the airplane which was spreading the=20 disease," said Dr. David Heymann, head of communicable diseases at WHO. "We= =20 have no evidence of the latter right now." For one thing, he said, health investigators have followed thousands of=20 passengers who flew with SARS-infected travelers and did not become sick.=20 However, he said that if they find there are cases that did not involve=20 close contact with someone sick or at high risk, "we will then be very=20 concerned that this might have become airborne." The airplane cases seem=20 similar to how the disease got its start here =97 from one hotel guest who= =20 spread it to six strangers staying on the same floor. One expert theorized= =20 it might have spread through the air-conditioning system. From the Hong=20 Kong hotel, the exposed tourists took the disease to Singapore, Vietnam and= =20 Canada. The disease has spread most rapidly through Asian hospitals, some=20 of which lacked the surgical masks and goggles needed to prevent catching=20 the disease from patients. WHO has been distributing such equipment. The U.S. State Department has warned citizens not to travel to Vietnam=20 because it lacks medical facilities to deal with the disease. In Hong Kong,= =20 SARS has spread to 10 hospitals, and the chief executive of Hong Kong's=20 Hospital Authority is hospitalized with SARS-like symptoms. Hong Kong reported 26 new cases Tuesday, bringing its total to 286 =97 more= =20 than half the worldwide total of 487. Ten of the world's 17 SARS deaths=20 since Feb. 1 have been in Hong Kong. In the United States, 39 people have=20 the disease, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said=20 32 of those had traveled to Asia. The others were health-care workers or=20 family members of infected patients. In Canada Tuesday, health officials=20 quarantined about two dozen people considered possible carriers and=20 announced the number of probable cases in Ontario jumped to 18 from 10.=20 Three Canadians have already dies from the disease. In Singapore, that=20 government has ordered 740 people who may have been exposed to the illness= =20 to stay home for 10 days or risk stiff fines. Meanwhile, a WHO team is in=20 mainland China trying to figure out if the atypical pneumonia that sickened= =20 more than 300 and killed five in Guangdong province is the same disease.=20 Officials with WHO and the CDC said Monday that SARS may be caused by a new= =20 form of the coronavirus, one of a few viruses that can cause the common= cold. The coronavirus had been found in SARS patient specimens by scientists at=20 Hong Kong University and by the CDC. But more research confirming that is=20 being pursued. There is no government-approved treatment for the common=20 cold or SARS, but CDC head Dr. Julie Gerberding said the Defense Department= =20 is testing the virus against all known antiviral drugs. There has been=20 progress with antivirals against other respiratory viruses and some of=20 those drugs have been effective in studies against some coronaviruses, she= =20 said. However, WHO virologist Dr. Klaus Stohr, who is working with the=20 agency's network of 11 global labs, said researchers in some labs continue= =20 to find signs of another germ family, the paramyxovirus. "We are a bit=20 puzzled because we are not only dealing apparently with one pathogen but=20 with two. The reason why we believe that both pathogens should be given=20 equal attention is that there is consistent finding of both pathogens in=20 individual patients or of either of the pathogens in other patients," he=20 said. "What we are seeing actually are three hypotheses." SARS might be caused by one of those two viruses or "these two pathogens=20 have to come together to cause this very severe outbreak." The latter=20 theory is that the coronavirus =97 which Stohr said lives in immune cells=20 that fight off disease =97 destroys or weakens the immunity in the patient= so=20 the second virus "has practically an open door to go in and to sicken the=20 patient beyond what this virus would be able to do normally. "But more=20 research is being done to verify that." *************************************************** The owner of Roger's Trinbago Site/TnTisland.com Roj (Roger James) escape email mailto:ejames@xxxxxxxxx Trinbago site: www.tntisland.com Carib Brass Ctn site www.tntisland.com/caribbeanbrassconnection/ Steel Expressions www.mts.net/~ejames/se/ Site of the Week: http://www.thehummingbirdonline.com TnT Webdirectory: http://search.co.tt *********************************************************