The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, January 12, 2004, Page 6, Image 6
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Investigators seek source of Chinese SARS case
BY TED ANTHONY
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BEIJING — Medical investiga
tors scrutinized an apartment
complex's sewage, water and
garbage systems Sunday, trying
to track down the source of
China's first SARS case of the sea
son, even as reports of another
suspected victim emerged.
Meanwhile, the province of
Guangdong, where the confirmed
and the suspected cases are all lo
cated, turned its attention from
the slaughter of civet cats - a wild
animal that is eaten as a local del
icacy but is thought to be a means
of transmitting SARS - to eradi
cating a more reviled form of ver
min: rats.
The new suspected case was a
35-year-old man in Guangdong,
who has been isolated and hospi
talized in stable condition, said Dr.
Thomas Tsang, a consultant at
tached to the Department of
Health in Hong Kong. He said of
ficials in neighboring Guangdong
had informed Hong Kong of the
possible case.
The new suspected patient of se
vere acute respiratory syndrome
does not work in a job that in
volves handling wild animals,
which are thought to be a means
of transmission for the virus,
Tsangsaid. - •
But China's Health Ministry in
formed the World Health
Organization on Sunday night
that tests so far on the man are in
conclusive, WHO said. "They have
not classified him as a suspected
SARS case," spokesman Bob Dietz
said in Beijing.
"Press reports keep bubbling
up," Dietz said. "There's always
been a problem with case defini
tion with SARS - actually identi
fying a case. So we want to under
stand clearly the basics that
Guangdong is using."
While information about SARS
cases has emerged from several
different sources in recent days,
the apparently contradictory in
formation that emerged from
Hong Kong and Beijing on Sunday
suggested a communications gap
between provincial and national
health officials.
Last week, the central govern
ment announced the other sus
pected case, a 20-year-old waitress,
who worked in a restaurant where
civet cat and other wild animals
were served. She has been isolat
ed for treatment and is said to be
doing well.
The only officially confirmed
case of the season, a 32-year-old
television producer named Luo,
left the hospital last week and was
pronounced recovered. He told au
thorities he came into contact with
no wild animals, and the source of
his SARS remains a mystery.
On Sunday, his apartment
block in Guangzhou, Guangdong's
provincial capital, was a flurry of
WHO activity as its investigators
swept through, interviewing man
agers and looking for sources of
infection in water systems,
garbage facilities and living quar
ters. They took swab samples from
stairwells and terraces, among
other sites.
"Our environmental experts
scoured the building," WHO
spokesman Roy Wadia said in a
telephone interview from
Guangzhou, Guangdong's capital.
"Based on the observations they
made, the complex seemed to be
managed pretty well."
He said WHO was working with
the Guangdong Center for Disease
Control to examine all data col
lected so far.
At the same time, experts
worked to process laboratory sam
ples taken from the restaurant
where the waitress worked. WHO
called Friday for more informa
tion on the waitress, saying it
could help determine how she was
pronounced a suspected case.
Investigators said they found
no immediate conclusions about
whether her job was linked to her
illness. The establishment didn't
specialize in wild game but served
some wildlife, including civet cats.
Thousands of civets were
slaughtered in Guangdong during
the past week on suspicions they
could have transmitted SARS to
human beings. Although the virus
has been found in the weasel-like
mammals, there has been no
definitive proof of their status as
a human vector.
"Basically, most of the civet cats
in Guangdong have been slaugh
tered," said an official at the
Guangzhou Anti-SARS Office who
gave only his surname, Liu.
SARS is believed to have first
appeared in Guangdong before
killing 774 people worldwide and
sickening more than 8,000.
The Guangzhou-based newspa
per Yangcheng Evening News said
on its Web site Sunday that a
three-day campaign on eliminat
ing rats was drawing more than
10,000 people. It said more than 10
tons of poison-laced grain have
been deployed in "millions of
places" to kill rats.
"Exercise caution in dealing
with rat carcasses," it said, quot
ing authorities.
Separately, the South Korean
Environmental Ministry said
Sunday that it has banned the im
port of civet cats, Chinese ferret
badgers and raccoon dogs because
of their possible link to SARS.
Violators face up two years in
jail or a $4,200 fine, ministry offi
cials said. No cases of SARS have
been found in South Korea.
Iraqi impatience spawns melee, opposition to U.S. handover
BY NADIA ABOU EL-MAGD
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
AMARAH, IflAQ — Impatience
with Iraq’s occupying forces
boiled over Sunday as unem
ployed Iraqis pelted British troops
with stones and a top Shiite
Muslim cleric demanded the coun
try’s next parliament be elected —
not chosen by local caucuses, as
foreseen by the Americans.
Also Sunday, a U.S.-backed
Iraqi politician said an ongoing
purge of members of Saddam
Hussein’s Baath party had pushed
28,000 Iraqis from their jobs.
In the southern city of Amarah,
waves of protesters — some armed
with sticks and shovels — rushed
British troops guarding the city
hall, a day after clashes here killed
six protesters and wounded at
least 11.
The British drove the crowd
back from the compound, which
also houses the U.S.-led occupation
force and the 1st Battalion of
Britain’s Light Infantry. Booms
and flashes of light from makeshift
bombs exploded in the melee.
“We are trying to permit a
peaceful protest but prevent loss
of life or damage to property,” said
British Mhj. Johnny Bowron.
Tensions in Amarah, 200 miles
southeast of Baghdad, erupted
Saturday after hundreds of Iraqis
gathered to protest that authori
ties had not kept a promise to give
them jobs. On Sunday, demon
strators said they were looking to
avenge those killed Saturday.
There were no reports of injuries
on Sunday.
Demonstrators sent a repre
sentative to talk to British and
Iraqi officials, who promised them
8,000 jobs, according to witnesses.
But protesters said a similar
promise made weeks before had
not been fulfilled, and the clash en
sued. Prior to the U.S.-led invasion
of Iraq, Saddam’s security forces
were the biggest employer in this
city of 400,000.
The U. S. Department of
Defense raised the American
death toll since the start of the war
to 495 on Sunday after the death of
a 23 - year old soldier from a heart
attack in Qatar.
Sunday’s comments by Iraq’s
top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah
Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, could
complicate American plans to
hand over sovereignty to the
Iraqis by July 1.
Al-Sistani, whose views are
highly influential among Iraq’s
Shiite majority, said the U.S. plan
to have regional caucuses select
members of a provisional national
assembly would give birth to an il
legitimate Iraqi government.
“This will, in turn, give rise to
new problems and the political
and security situation will deteri
orate,” al-Sistani said in a state
ment released by his office in the
holy Shiite city of Najaf, south of
Baghdad.
Al-Sistani demanded the as
sembly be directly elected, saying
credible elections could be held in
Iraq within months.
Al-Sistani also balked at U.S.
plans to seek quick approval for
the continued occupation of Iraq
through its handpicked Governing
Council. The ayatollah said only
an elected government could sign
off on the presence of U.S. troops
beyond July 1.
Al-Sistani’s opposition forced
the Americans to change their
transition plans once already.
Participation by Shiites — who
make up 60 percent of Iraq’s 25
million people — is essential to the
success of the transition.
But drafting a new plan to ac
commodate his views would make
Washington look like it is allow
ing its Iraq policies to be held
hostage to the wishes of one man.
It also would further anger Iraq’s
minority Sunnis who had domi
nated politics in Iraq for decades
and are bristling at the attention
given now to the Shiites they have
traditionally oppressed.
Meanwhile, tens of thousands
more former high-level Baathists
are set to lose their jobs in ongo
ing purges, said Governing
Council member Ahmad Chalabi,
a favorite of the Pentagon who
heads a committee aimed at rid
ding Iraq of the influence of
Saddam’s party.
For Chalabi, the idea of recon
ciliation with top Baathists is a
nonstarter.
“How can you reconcile those
laying dead in mass graves with
those who killed them? We can
only talk about forgiveness,”
Chalabi told reporters.
U.S. administrator L. Paul
Bremer dissolved and banned the
Baath party in May, a month after
U.S. forces swept into Baghdad to
remove Saddam from power and
end 35 years of the party’s rule.
In the northern city of Mosul on
Sunday, U.S. soldiers arrested four
men accused of working for the
top fugitive in Iraq as rebel pay
masters.
The four were paying insur
gents to attack U.S. troops on be
half of Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, one
of Saddam’s former chief lieu
tenants, said Maj. Trey Cate,
spokesman for the U.S. Army’s
101st Airborne Division.
U.S. officials have issued a $10
million bounty on al-Douri, who
has taken the spot as the most
wanted man in Iraq since
Saddam’s capture.
Elsewhere, U.S. troops arrest
ed a Saddam loyalist Sunday sus
pected in last month’s shooting of
an American soldier, who was
saved by his flak jacket.
The shot soldier, Sgt. Jeffrey
Allen of Leitchfield, Ky., arrested
the man in a raid on the Iraqi’s
home in Tikrit, launched after a
neighbor’s tip, said Lt. Col. Steve
Russell of the U.S. Army’s 4th
Infantry Division.
Also Sunday, authorities said
the body of an Iraqi working with
the U.S.-led coalition was found in
the southern city of Basra, along
with the corpse of another man
not associated with the coalition.
Insurgents opposed to the U.S.-led
occupation have targeted soldiers
as well as civilians and Iraqi po
lice working with the occupiers.
In Baghdad, two Estonian sol
diers suffered minor injuries
when a grenade was thrown at
their patrol on Saturday, accord
ing to Estonian army spokesman
Peeter Tali.
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