| Hot off the press from Singapore... Take it with a grain of salt for it is in part propaganda (intended for Singaporeans). But it does shed some lights on what is going on... MAY 8, 2003 10,000 quarantined How Nanjing official's selfish act hurt others BEIJING - A Chinese official returning recently from Beijing to Nanjing defied quarantine orders and lied to doctors, becoming a presumed source of the Sars virus in the eastern Jiangsu province and prompting officials to quarantine 10,000 people, reports said. The movements of Mr Jin Guohua, deputy general manager of the state-owned Xinhua Bookstores in eastern Jiangsu province, also led officials in the provincial capital of Nanjing to take other drastic measures to control the spread of Sars in the city. Mr Jin was diagnosed as a probable Sars case last week - but only after he had had close contact with 400 people in four cities in Jiangsu, state-run newspapers said. The province has so far recorded four confirmed Sars cases and 16 suspected cases. As a result of the official's actions, thousands were ordered into quarantine. Alarmed officials also ordered two-week quarantines for thousands of travellers coming from Beijing, Guangdong, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia and other Sars-affected areas, even if they showed no symptoms. Local Chinese media reported that Mr Jin travelled to Beijing in early April. Returning to Nanjing, he declined to observe a voluntary, 10-day quarantine. Instead, he began a series of trips to other cities in Jiangsu, sources in his company said. By April 25, he had developed a cough. He sought medical treatment at a military hospital and declined to tell doctors he had been in Beijing, a centre of the Sars epidemic, the sources said. Five days later, his cough and fever had worsened and he was forced to seek treatment at a hospital in Nanjing. Only then, after he had close contact with 400 people in four cities, was it determined that he probably had Sars, state-run newspapers said. Mr Jin's case prompted the Jiangsu government to order thousands of quarantine orders. The provincial government and the Communist Party committee also deployed 1,700 police to check the temperatures of all people entering the province by air, sea or land. Thousands more police were dispatched to villages to conduct house-to-house temperature checks. Jiangsu officials also ordered two-week quarantines for travellers from Beijing, Guangdong, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia and other Sars- affected areas, even if they showed no symptoms. Among others, 4,653 travellers from Beijing, 1,000 from Guangdong, 115 from Inner Mongolia, 30 from Shanxi and 66 from Hongkong have been placed in isolation, news reports said. Residents in Nanjing, where officials had been criticised by the central government for not acting more aggressively against Sars, said they were surprised by the sudden measures. 'First the government wasn't doing anything, then suddenly they went crazy and started slapping everybody in quarantine,' said a businessman there in a telephone interview. 'It's panic. In my neighbourhood, there's no one out on the streets. It's completely silent.' Some residents of Nanjing called for Mr Jin to be prosecuted. 'He avoided the rules about self-quarantine for people from epidemic areas and he directly threatened the lives of people around him,' residents said in an open letter. 'He should pay a price.' The quarantining of 10,000 people in Nanjing has raised fears that the virus could migrate and spark a crisis in neighbouring Shanghai, which has recorded six Sars cases. Nanjing is a major economic and traffic link to Shanghai, 290 km away. Shanghai, China's most important economic hub, has so far escaped a major Sars outbreak and leaders there have waged a campaign to protect more than just the citizens. 'The Chinese leadership has implemented the sanbao or the 'three protections': to protect medical workers, to protect Shanghai and protect rural areas,' said Hongkong political analyst Joseph Cheng. 'Protecting Shanghai is a very important objective because of the way the leadership reacted initially to the breakout. That's why they think that for reasons of economic importance they must protect Shanghai as well as their credibility.' Chinese health officials yesterday reported 159 more cases of Sars in the country and five more deaths. There are now 4,560 Sars cases in China and 219 people have died. -- AP, AFP |
With SARS, All We Have is Time