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WHO Removes Hong Kong From SARS List

Posted on: Monday, 23 June 2003, 06:00 CDT

The World Health Organization removed Hong Kong from its list of SARS-infected areas Monday, but warned the territory to keep up its guard against future outbreaks that might put it back on the list.

Sunday marked the 20th day since the last confirmed SARS patient was put in isolation in Hong Kong, the condition for it to be removed from the list.

Some street parties and minor events were planned to mark the occasion. Bars in the popular Lan Kwai Fong district planned to serve free champagne. Women in colorful carnival costumes danced on the waterfront and lion dancers prepared to perform.

But in general, celebrations here were muted. Top officials reportedly felt that anything more elaborate would be inappropriate given the toll the disease has taken on Hong Kong's people and its economy.

A total of 296 people have died from severe acute respiratory syndrome in Hong Kong, out of 1,755 sickened by the flu-like disease.

Hong Kong's great concern is to avoid a repeat of what happened in Toronto, where a new outbreak was discovered after Canada's largest city was taken off the WHO's list. Two people died of SARS on Sunday in Toronto.

"We advise Hong Kong to look at Toronto and learn the lesson of what can go wrong if you don't maintain your vigilance," WHO spokesman Peter Cordingley told The Associated Press by telephone from the agency's regional headquarters in Manila. "We are absolutely satisfied that Hong Kong is going to do that."

SARS has killed more than 800 people, most of them in Asia, since the disease emerged in southern China last November.

More than 8,400 were sickened in more than two dozen countries before the outbreak was controlled worldwide with officials isolating patients in quarantines and screening travelers for the SARS symptoms of fever, dry cough and aches.

Now, only Beijing, Taiwan and Toronto remain on the WHO list of affected areas.

At the height of the outbreak, hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong residents terrified of catching flu-like SARS wore surgical masks, avoided crowded public places and virtually stopped dining out or shopping for anything but necessities.

That, coupled with a virtual halt to tourism, devastated the already ailing local economy, pushing unemployment to a record 8.3 percent.

On Monday, some schools held "unmasking" events to mark the city's removal from the WHO list.

Still, education authorities were keeping temperature checks for students in place and urging schools to continue swabbing down with bleach.

In many public buildings, dispensers of anti-bacterial spray for hands have been installed next to elevators, and hand-washing facilities in many public toilets have been improved - part of a public health drive aimed at preventing the spread of SARS.

The government was expected to announce later Monday new measures to boost tourism, which has been hard hit by the SARS outbreak. Officials have already embarked on a massive cleanup campaign for the city's grimy streets and have announced measures to create more jobs for the growing ranks of unemployed.

Cordingley said that although there is a risk SARS might recur here, for now Hong Kong is safe. He praised the local efforts to combat SARS, which first hit here in late February.

"Hong Kong has suffered in a way that nowhere else has. The disease was in the hospitals and in the community almost before we knew what it was," he said. "But we take our hats off to the effort that the Department of Health has made in Hong Kong."

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