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

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U.S. boy in Vietnam contracts mystery pnuemonia

HANOI - An American schoolboy in southern Vietnam has contracted a fast-spreading pneumonia that has killed at least 14 people, but he was not known to have been exposed to anyone else infected, health officials said on Wednesday.

A Vietnamese nurse and a French doctor have died from the virus in Hanoi, termed an atypical pneumonia, after treating a U.S. businessman who was hospitalised in Vietnam's capital city following trips to Shanghai and Hong Kong. The American businessman died in Hong Kong on Thursday. Nearly 60 people have fallen ill in Vietnam from the virus, which is believed to have originated in southern China late last year.

Most infections are in China, Hong Kong and Vietnam, but it is fast spreading to Singapore, Canada and Taiwan, with linked cases in Australia, Britain, Brunei, Canada, Spain and the United States. Most of the cases have been medical staff at hospitals or relatives of people who have fallen ill.

The World Health Organisation said the boy, believed to be 11 years old, had travelled to the northern resort town of Sapa on a school trip before falling sick. U.S. ambassador Raymond Burghardt told a meeting of diplomats that the boy, who lives in Ho Chi Minh City, had also been in Hanoi but had no apparent link to any health care workers or other victims.

He said doctors from the Centers for Disease Control who are helping with the crisis concluded he had symptoms that "meets completely the profile of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome)". Pascale Brudon, a representative of the WHO in Hanoi, said: "It's too early to have a definite conclusion" that the illness was spreading beyond the medical worker community who had been directly infected.

She also said doctors had not ruled out the virus being spread from animals to humans. However, Brudon stressed that the disease was not believed to be spread by casual contact. The early symptoms are similar to influenza, and include high fever and respiratory problems.

By Christina Toh-Pantin - Reuters - March 19, 2003.


Mystery illness kills second person in Vietnam

HANOI - As news spread that a mysterious illness claimed a second victim here, worried residents in Vietnam's capital snatched up surgical masks and raced to pharmacies for preventive medicines. Customers asked for antibiotics or anything else that might be able to ward off the unidentified disease that killed a French doctor Wednesday and a Vietnamese nurse Saturday.

At least 53 others remain hospitalized in Hanoi, and two tourists were hospitalized in Ho Chi Minh City with the flu-like symptoms that have characterized the outbreak. Pharmacists dispensed vitamins, garlic pills, herbs and fruits as ways to pump up immune systems.

"A lot of people are coming here because they are very scared,'' said a pharmacist who declined to give his name. "They're asking for medicine to kill the flu.'' But world health experts aren't even sure what's causing the illness that's dubbed, severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS. The public has been warned not to panic because the disease doesn't appear to be spreading rapidly like a common cold and the number of confirmed deaths internationally remains low - two in North America and seven in Asia.

The death Wednesday in Hanoi and another cited by Hong Kong officials - if confirmed by the World Health Organization - would bring the toll to 11. The disease doesn't respond to standard drugs in most patients and it has fanned across the globe through infected air travelers. At least 219 cases have been recorded in North America, Europe and Asia - mostly hospital workers in Vietnam, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Doctors searching for the source say that some victims appear to be infected with a virus group that causes measles and diseases such as distemper in animals. There is no treatment for that virus group. State-controlled newspapers here on Wednesday quoted Vietnamese Health Ministry officials saying the disease has been controlled and the number of patients is declining. However, two tourists from America and Japan were admitted to Cho Ray Hospital on Monday with symptoms, a doctor there said on condition of anonymity.

Vietnam Airlines has started spraying disinfectant on all international flights just before takeoff to kill germs. Tourism is feeling a pinch after about 2,000 Taiwanese canceled package tours to the communist country and several business travelers from Hong Kong scrapped reservations at the Hilton Hanoi Opera. Others who have continued with their travel plans say they can't help feeling a bit wary while wandering the streets of Hanoi.

Gabriele Kunze of Berlin strolled around Hoan Kiem Lake with a camera around her neck and a mask strapped to her face. She was scheduled to fly from Frankfurt on the same plane that was grounded Saturday after a doctor on board and two others coming from New York were suspected of being infected. Kunze flew the following day, but said she's still afraid of coming down sick. "Yesterday, our (tour) guide provided us with masks,'' she said. "We know it's dangerous.''

The disease was believed to have spread from an American businessman who lived in Shanghai and traveled to Vietnam via Hong Kong. He was later evacuated back to Hong Kong where he died. Since then, 33 workers at the Hanoi French Hospital remain ill while at least 20 others have been admitted to the Bach Mai Hospital. Doctor Nguyen Duc Hien, deputy director of the tropical disease unit there, said he has reserved another 30 beds in the ward to receive potential new patients.

"We hope that the outbreak will be contained soon and we would not have to use those extra beds,'' he said

The Associated Press - March 19, 2003.