SARS spreads to new places, death toll reaches 100

Hong Kong (Agence France-Presse): The death toll from a respiratory virus causing a global health scare hit 100 on Monday as more deaths from the mystery disease were reported in China, Singapore and Hong Kong.

China and Singapore each revealed two more deaths from the virus on Monday while Hong Kong reported one, taking the global death toll to exactly 100: 53 in China, 23 in Hong Kong, nine in Canada, eight in Singapore, four in Vietnam, two in Thailand and one in Malaysia,

Nearly 2,800 suspected cases of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) have been detected around the world with China (1,268 cases) and neighboring Hong Kong (883) the hardest hit.

As SARS claimed five more lives in Asia, the first confirmed case was reported in Portugal and a fifth suspected case was detected in Britain.

Vietnam reported five more cases of the disease on Monday, dealing a setback to its efforts to contain the outbreak of the pneumonia-like respiratory virus.

China, meanwhile, came under renewed fire for failing to promptly report the initial cases of the illness to the UN's World Health Organization (WHO), and top U.S. health officials were to appear before the U.S. Congress on Monday to brief lawmakers on the spread of the disease in North America.

Health officials in the United States have reported 115 and Canada has counted 217, including the nine deaths.

In China, where the first cases of SARS appeared in the southern province of Guangdong in November, the health ministry reported two more deaths on Monday and another 21 cases, bringing the total of cases country-wide to 1,268.

In Hong Kong, where schools have been shut and hundreds quarantined, the death of a 78-year-old woman from SARS and an additional 41 new cases of the disease.

A spokeswoman for the Hospital Authority said Hong Kong's hospitals were prepared to handle up to 3,000 SARS patients in a worst-case scenario.

In Singapore, the ministry of health said two more people, a doctor and the mother of one of the original SARS cases in Singapore, had died on Monday.

Six additional cases, all of them nurses, were reported Monday, bringing to 112 the total number of SARS cases in Singapore.

In Vietnam, where at least 65 people have been infected with SARS and four have died, health officials said they were "deeply worried" by the discovery of five new cases over the weekend.

Vietnam had been lauded by the WHO last week for its efforts to contain the spread of SARS but the new cases cast doubt on how effective the efforts have been.

"We are deeply worried about the fact that more and more new cases of SARS have been found. It is very likely than some others will show up," said Le Dang Ha of the institute of tropical diseases at Hanoi's Bach Mai hospital.

WHO director general Gro Harlem Brundtiand publicly criticized China, meanwhile, for its handling of the initial outbreak of SARS.

Speaking in New Delhi on Monday, Brundtiand said China should have sought the help of experts to stem the outbreak of SARS more quickly.

"If you are asking if WHO had been given an opportunity ... to enter Guangdong and be able help the authorities there in dealing with the outbreak in the region, yes that would have been helpful," she said.

"It should have happened earlier in my opinion," she said, adding that "we now have good cooperation with Guangdong and with China on this issue."