China Seizes Wildlife to Stop SARS Spread

Wednesday, May 28, 2003
(11:43)
By Christopher Bodeen
Associated Press Writer

“This is a problem that it is serious, but it is not dangerous at all to travel to Toronto.”
-- Prime Minister Jean Chretien

An unidentified woman and newborn baby leave North York General Hospital as health care workers look on in Toronto Tuesday May 27, 2003. At least one prominent doctor is arguing that SARS is back because hospitals let down their guard because of political pressure. Meanwhile, with more than 2,000 people in quarantine and fluctuating numbers of those listed as probable, suspect and under investigation, it is tough to keep track of just how many people are actually sick.
Image Credit: Aaron Harris -- Canadian Press

BEIJING, China -- AP
Forestry officials in southern China seized pheasants, foxes and other game in raids on wildlife markets under new restrictions meant to control SARS, while hundreds of people in Canada were kept under quarantine following a renewed outbreak.

A Russian hospitalized on the Chinese border was diagnosed with SARS on Wednesday, becoming Russia's first official case of the respiratory ailment, media reports said. ``The diagnosis is unquestionable: This is SARS,'' Gennady Onishchenko, the country's chief epidemiologist, told the Interfax news agency.

The China raids came after a World Health Organization scientist said Tuesday that SARS antibodies found in workers who handled game species at a market in southern China backed the theory that the disease jumped from animals to humans.

The WHO said the emergence of SARS in southern China in November and its spread to more than two dozen countries, infecting more than 8,000 people, has shown the need to update international health regulations.
(More: Netscape Network News)
2003 © The Associated Press.

Dan