HONG KONG: More than 100 people in one Hong Kong apartment block were suspected to have been infected by a deadly pneumonia virus, officials said yesterday, triggering fears that the killer disease was being spread through air or water.
At least two more people died from the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in Hong Kong, taking the death toll in the city to 15, and to 61 worldwide.
A total of 213 people living in the Amoy Gardens housing estate were confirmed or suspected to be infected with SARS, of whom 107 are from Block E of the complex, Health Secretary Mr Yeoh Eng-kiong said.
Authorities have quarantined more than 200 other residents in Block E in an effort to contain the virus, which has infected almost 1,700 people across the world, mostly in Asia.
Two elderly men died of the disease yesterday, bringing the death toll in the city to 15. Amoy Gardens is in a maze of crowded housing estates and smoke-spewing industrial buildings in one of the most densely populated areas in the world.
Proliferation of the virus in such an environment is certain to create havoc and put immense pressure on public hospitals, already barely able to cope.
Fearful of the disease, some companies have ordered staff to work from home while others have begun to organise backup, skeletal teams in case their workers get infected.
Hong Kong and Singapore have closed schools and quarantined those exposed. Besides these two cities, deaths have also been reported in Vietnam, Canada and China, where the disease originated in November.
A doctor from the World Health Organisation - who was infected in Vietnam after he had identified the virus - died in a Bangkok hospital at the weekend.
The disease has triggered tighter screenings at many airports and a growing number of countries have advised citizens against unnecessary travel to the worst-affected areas.
In Singapore, nurses have been deployed at the airport to check incoming passengers.
Apart from scaring away tourists, the epidemic has disrupted business in Hong Kong. A growing list of shops, banks and offices have shut after employees were found infected.