Kills Nine People of 20 Infected
July 24 (Bloomberg) : An unidentified illness in China's southwestern province of Sichuan has killed nine people of the 20 infected in the last month, the World Health Organization and China's official Xinhua news agency said.
The ill were farm workers who probably contracted the disease from sick pigs or sheep they had butchered, Xinhua said, citing provincial health officials. The disease caused fever, nausea, fatigue and bruises, with those who died first becoming comatose, it said.
SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, prompted greater attention from health officials toward emerging diseases after it jumped to people from wild animals. The illness probably originated in southern China's Guangdong province.
"This is a good job of disease surveillance, and shows China has vastly improved its system since the SARS period in 2003,'' World Health Organization spokesman Bob Dietz said in a phone interview from Manila.
China's health authorities discovered an outbreak of 20 cases over a month treated at three different hospitals, Dietz said. Dietz wouldn't comment on the possible identity of the disease, which doesn't appear to have been passed between humans.
The outbreak, which began on June 24, affected 19 men and one woman between the ages of 30 and 70 who came from 15 villages in the Yanjiang and Jianying districts, Xinhua said. Of the 20 people infected, nine had died by July 21 and 10 remained hospitalized, six in critical condition, it said.
Hong Kong Alert
Radio Television Hong Kong, a government broadcaster, cited unidentified residents of the affected area as saying the number of people infected was underreported. Hong Kong's Centre for Health Protection yesterday issued a statement saying it had been alerted of the outbreak by China's Ministry of Health.
Possible causes of the outbreak include anthrax, the pig streptococcus bacteria and the Nipah virus, Hong Kong's South China Morning Post reported, citing infections diseases specialist Lo Wing-Lok. Dietz said the symptoms don't appear similar to those caused by bird flu.
China's ministries of health and agriculture have sent a joint team of experts to Sichuan to provide medical help and conduct an investigation, Xinhua said.
