China's civet slaughter may pose SARS...

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
China's civet slaughter may pose SARS...
5
Tue, 01-06-2004 - 3:19pm
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/155430_chinasars06.html

China's civet slaughter may pose SARS hazard, too

Tuesday, January 6, 2004


By JIM YARDLEY
THE NEW YORK TIMES


BEIJING -- The World Health Organization urged caution yesterday as provincial leaders in southern China rushed to kill thousands of civet cats as a preventive measure against SARS. Organization officials warned that such a large-scale slaughter, if done improperly, could pose serious hazards, including the possibility of more infections.


Earlier in the day, experts with the organization and the Chinese Ministry of Health confirmed a 32-year-old man in Guangdong is the first person in mainland China infected with SARS since the initial outbreak ended last summer. WHO experts said the man's case appears isolated and emphasized that it does not represent an "immediate public health threat" to southern China.


WHO officials called for leaders in Guangdong Province to conduct a risk assessment study before killing the estimated 10,000 civets in captivity in the province. They said Guangdong should protect against possible soil or water contamination during the slaughter while also ensuring that workers carrying out the cull are not exposed to the virus.


"We would recommend that the authorities do take extreme caution," said Dr. Jeffrey Gilbert, an animal expert in the WHO's Beijing office, speaking at a news conference last night. "We do feel that there is a potential hazard."


Chinese officials, however, seemed determined to move quickly. Some scientists suspect that SARS had spread to humans from civets, and state news organizations reported that Chinese authorities had issued an order to kill the civets by Saturday.


The health organization praised Guangdong officials for their handling of the case of the man whose SARS was confirmed and said that travelers should feel safe to go to the province and elsewhere in China. The plaudits were in stark contrast to the situation last year when the organization had warned travelers against coming to Guangdong and, later, to Beijing. Those advisories were lifted after the spread of the disease was halted.


"We do believe the system in Guangdong is working," said Henk Bekedam, the organization representative in Beijing.


Nonetheless, the reassurances came at the end of a day when concerns about a new outbreak of SARS arose across Asia. Health officials in the Philippines quarantined a woman who had developed a fever after a flight from Hong Kong. Her husband was also quarantined with a fever, but it could take several days to determine if the couple has SARS.


Dr. Jean-Marc Olive, the WHO's representative in the Philippines, said that he was personally skeptical that the case was SARS, since Hong Kong does not yet have any newly documented cases of SARS. But he added that the Philippines government was taking the correct precautions.


As the day began, China's leading SARS expert, Dr. Zhong Nanshan, said in Hong Kong that the SARS patient in Guangdong appeared to be stricken with a new strain of the virus, which is genetically similar to strains found in civets.


He also announced findings of a joint study with Hong Kong microbiologists that found a high preponderance of SARS-like viruses in civets.


Diners in southern China are known to be adventurous, and the civet -- a ferretlike creature related to the mongoose -- is considered by many to be a winter delicacy. During the initial SARS outbreak, officials banned the sale of civets.


Gilbert, who called the extermination plan "a radical step," said that such a cull could provide scientific rewards and that officials should be careful about not "destroying the evidence."


© 1998-2004 Seattle Post-Intelligencer


iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Wed, 01-07-2004 - 10:18am

Prediction....... killing all these animals will not prevent the spreading of

 


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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Thu, 01-08-2004 - 9:40am
This is an interesting article.............

 


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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Thu, 01-08-2004 - 10:07am

When I read the original article that I posted, I was wondering if the whole thing was a fear-based overreaction to another epidemic.


iVillage Member
Registered: 03-23-2003
Thu, 01-08-2004 - 11:55am

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apasia_story.asp?category=1104&slug=China%20SARS%20Editor


Thursday, January 8, 2004 · Last updated 5:13 a.m. PT


Editor who broke SARS news is questioned


By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER


SHANGHAI, China -- An editor whose newspaper broke the news of China's first new SARS case was detained and questioned by prosecutors, a human rights center reported.


Cheng Yizhong, editor in chief of the Southern Metropolitan Daily, declined to comment on his reported questioning, but appeared to indicate the issue may have been resolved.


"It's inconvenient for me to speak right now, but this matter should be over," said Cheng, reached at the newspaper's offices.


Cheng was taken from his office Tuesday in the southern city of Guangzhou by three members of the municipal prosecutor's office, the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said. It said he was released eight hours later.


Phone calls to Guangzhou prosecutors weren't answered, and there has been no official announcement of the reason for Cheng's questioning.


The Southern Metropolitan Daily had embarrassed the Communist government by reporting that a man in Guangzhou was suspected of having SARS on Dec. 26 - a day before authorities informed the World Health Organization of the case.


The journalist who reported the story, Zeng Wenqiong, has not come to work for several days, said a newspaper switchboard operator. The operator declined to give her name or other details, and it wasn't clear whether Zeng had also been detained.


China's government is sensitive to any suggestion that it isn't reacting promptly and decisively to SARS. Authorities were criticized for their slow reaction to the earlier outbreak, which killed 349 people on China's mainland.


Chinese journalists who anger local authorities often find themselves accused of corruption or other unrelated crimes. Some have been jailed after exposing embezzlement and other official abuses.


"Provincial party leaders are extremely unhappy that the Southern Daily failed to get the approval from the provincial party committee to print the SARS story," the Information Center said.


Cheng's newspaper also had reported on the politically explosive case last year of a young man who was beaten to death after being detained by Guangzhou police for lacking residency papers.


A public uproar over the death prompted Chinese leaders to issue new policies on police are to treat migrant workers.


The SARS patient in Guangzhou, a 32-year-old television producer, was later confirmed to have severe acute respiratory syndrome. He was released from a hospital Thursday after being pronounced recovered.


iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Sun, 01-11-2004 - 1:39pm

3rd Suspected SARS Case Emerges in China Province.


>"Health officials said today that they had been notified of a third suspected case of severe acute respiratory syndrome in China's adjacent Guangdong Province, and they expressed growing worry over the weekend about the possibility of another outbreak here."<


>"Close to 400,000 people a day cross Hong Kong's land borders with Guangdong, roughly half commuting daily to jobs on the opposite side, making it one of the world's busiest frontiers. At the same time, Hong Kong is Asia's busiest air travel hub in terms of the number of international passengers, with 70 airlines providing service to 130 countries.


A series of global disease outbreaks over the past century, including SARS last spring and the Hong Kong flu epidemic in the late 1960's, have started in the extremely crowded towns and cities of Guangdong Province, spread to Hong Kong and then gone quickly around the world."<


Quotes from...........


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/11/international/asia/11CND-SARS.html?ex=1074488400&en=50e660df57da0029&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

cl-Libraone





 


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