~ Le Viêt Nam, aujourd'hui. ~
The Vietnam News

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Some tourists shun Vietnam as pneumonia worry grows

HANOI - Tourists have cancelled trips to Vietnam and residents of the capital, Hanoi, are buying up medical supplies after a fast-spreading, severe type of pneumonia killed a nurse at a city hospital at the weekend. Global health authorities are on alert over the pneumonia that has killed at least nine people in various parts of the world, infected more than 100 and sparked a warning from the World Health Organisation (WHO).

"Two big group tours of 40 people from Europe cancelled this morning and more might be called off this week," said Tran Trong Kien chief executive of Buffalo Tours in Hanoi. "I think this is only temporary but it will be bad for business if it drags on," he said.

The Geneva-based WHO said there were reports two people had died in Canada, taking the global death toll to nine since the first known case of the strain of atypical pneumonia, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) last month in China. The Vietnamese nurse who died was one of the first people infected at a Hanoi hospital. She was the second person to die of the disease in Asia.

A U.S. businessman, who the Vietnamese nurse had tended before he was flown to Hong Kong, died in Hong Kong on Thursday. More than 40 cases have been reported in Vietnam and shopkeepers in the capital Hanoi, at the centre of the outbreak in Vietnam, reported brisk sales of surgical masks and other supplies such as vitamins and nasal medicines. The owner of a shop that sells cloth masks, worn by motorcyclists for protection from pollution, said she had sold about 50 masks on Monday morning. Usually she seels about 10 all day.

A Hanoi pharmacist said people were buying up a lot more cold and flu medicine than usual. "There are a lot more people buying nasal droppers today and vitamins. We are stocking up nasal droppers in case it gets worse," Organisers of several business meetings said they were keeping to their plans for now. A Manchester Chamber of Commerce and Industry trade mission would begin as scheduled on Monday, said a spokesman at the British embassy in Hanoi.

A regional tourism meeting in Hanoi at the end of March is also still going ahead but Pacific Asia Travel Association spokesman Ken Scott said the group would seek government advice ahead of the meeting. A bar popular with Westerners said fear about the disease may be hurting business. "I noticed there were less regulars on Saturday and last night," the bar manager said.

By Christina Toh-Pantin - Reuters - March 17, 2003.