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Villagers attacked officials over sars { May 5 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
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Yahoo! News Mon, May 05, 2003
Health - AP
Villagers Attack China Offices Over SARS
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By WILLIAM FOREMAN, Associated Press Writer
BEIJING - Villagers angry that SARS (news - web sites) patients were being quarantined in a government office beat up officials, broke windows and smashed furniture in China's eastern Zhejiang province, witnesses and officials said Monday.
Also Monday, Hong Kong researchers who discovered the virus said a patent on the microbe is being sought. That could help them reap economic gain from diagnostic tests or medicines developed to fight the disease.
At least 15 more deaths from severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, were reported Monday — nine in China, three in Hong Kong, two in Taiwan and one in Singapore, raising the global toll to at least 464. About 6,300 others have been infected.
World Health Organization (news - web sites) doctors continued their rare visit to Taiwan, which does not have official ties with the U.N. agency. China, which considers Taiwan part of its territory, initially refused permission to WHO doctors but changed its mind last week.
The WHO also said new scientific findings indicate feces may be a more important method of spreading the virus than originally thought. Coughing and sneezing remain the chief means, but government scientists in Hong Kong have found that the virus can stay alive for at least four days in diarrhea.
The protests in the town of Xiande were some of the most violent since SARS began hitting Asian nations and stirring up fears among residents that their governments are not properly battling the mysterious virus.
In Xiande, several thousand villagers began protesting last weekend in front of a local government building where suspected SARS patients were being quarantined, said a witness, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"They shouldn't have hospitalized patients in the government building, which has no medical facilities and professional staff," the villager said by telephone.
The witness said five villagers broke into the building Sunday night, shattering windows and breaking furniture in a few offices. Three officials trying to stop the violence were injured, the witness said.
An officer in the Yuhuan County Public Security Bureau said two people who led the attack would be detained up to a week. Five other detainees would be released later, said the policeman, who would only give his surname, Chen. It was unclear when the two additional people were detained.
The witness said villagers continued their protest Monday morning when they heard three more people were placed under quarantine inside the building.
Last week, protesters in a village east of Beijing ransacked a school after hearing the building was to be used as a SARS ward.
Of the nine new SARS deaths reported in China, three were in Beijing, raising the mainland's total to 206. Officials added 160 new cases, bringing the national total to 4,280.
Beijing also sent police to guard 80 reservoirs around the capital, protecting the drinking water supply from contamination, the Beijing Youth Daily reported.
In a northern province bordering Beijing, at least 11 officials in the city of Zhuozhou were fired for failing to take effective measures against SARS, the official Xinhua News Agency said Monday.
At the University of Hong Kong, microbiologist Malik Peiris said that after his team discovered the virus, it sent samples to other scientists but no patent was immediately sought. When it became clear others were seeking patents, the Hong Kong team then sought one, Peiris said.
Peiris referred further questions to the school's intellectual property unit, Versitech Ltd., but no one answered the phone there Monday night.
Dr. Klaus Stohr, the WHO's chief SARS scientist, said discovery that the virus can survive in feces at room temperature for as long as four days was perhaps the most disturbing finding. In another experiment, Stohr said, University of Hong Kong scientists confirmed that common disinfectants can kill the virus in five minutes.
The number of new cases has been dwindling lately in Hong Kong, and the trend continued Monday, when the government reported only eight fresh cases. However, the three new deaths raised the territory's toll to 187.
Many Hong Kong patients have been trying to fight SARS with Chinese herbal remedies, and two traditional medicine practitioners from China were discussing treatments with authorities Monday, officials said.
The two were expected to stay in Hong Kong for a few weeks, talking about their experiences treating SARS patients with combinations of Western and Chinese drugs.
In Taiwan, Lee Lung-teng, deputy chief in the Health Department, said WHO doctors were observing SARS treatment at hospitals. He said Taiwan hoped the visit would help the island overcome China's objections and gain observer status in the WHO.
On Sunday, China authorities said Beijing schools will stay closed for two more weeks to protect students from SARS. China's capital shut down the schools about two weeks ago, affecting more than 1.3 million students.
Countries around the region have been assessing the severe damage SARS has done to their once-lucrative tourism industries. Australian officials estimated Monday that the epidemic, paired with the war in Iraq (news - web sites), will cost its tourist industry $1.2 billion.
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