WHO Adds To SARS Travel Warning List

Toronto, Beijing, China's Shanxi Province Are Places To Avoid

(CBS)  The World Health Organization is advising travelers to avoid Toronto, Beijing and China's Shanxi province because of the danger of SARS.

In the global health agency's latest move to stem the spread of the virus worldwide, the three locations joined Hong Kong and the Chinese province of Guangdong as no-go areas for visitors.

The WHO warning will have "an unnecessary as well as a detrimental impact on our city and we can't afford that," said Dr. Sheela Basrur, Toronto's medical officer of health, adding that the WHO travel warning was a "gross misrepresentation of the facts."

Canada has been the most affected area outside Asia, with 15 deaths so far, all in the Toronto area.

But the true situation in Toronto, she said, was that the outbreak is "serious and it is contained largely in hospitals which is, frankly, where it belongs. So we don't have widespread community spread."

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control was already warning Americans going to Toronto to avoid hospitals in that city. Travelers coming from Toronto will receive a yellow alert notice warning that they have been in an area where SARS transmission has occurred and they should monitor their health for 10 days following their return.

It is mild, by travel alert standards, and does not urge Americans to avoid travel to Toronto, as the CDC has done for some SARS hot zones.

"We're not seeing evidence of unexplained cases of SARS anywhere in that community," CDC director Julie Gerberding said of Toronto. "That's very different from the situation in Hong Kong."

The United States has reported just 38 probable cases and no deaths.

The Belgian government also has advised its citizens against "nonessential" traveling to China or Toronto, after issuing similar travel warnings for Hong Kong, Singapore and Hanoi, Vietnam.

Experts from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have arrived in Toronto to help officials figure out how to stop the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome within hospitals.

Ontario Premier Ernie Eves, under pressure to provide some relief to businesses affected by SARS, said such compensation could run into the "tens of billions of dollars. I don't see how any level of government can really get into that."

Rick Naylor, head of Accucom, a company that organizes trade shows to Toronto, said the WHO warning will be economically devastating.

"The ripple effect is huge because the hotel industry, the restaurant industry, sporting events, everything filters out of that," he said.

Major League Baseball also will advise teams visiting Toronto in the coming weeks against signing autographs, visiting hospitals, using public transportation or mingling with large crowds.

"Today, we're recommending that people who have unnecessary travel to Shanxi, to Beijing and to Toronto postpone that travel if possible because, as was the case for Hong Kong and Guangdong, these areas now have quite a high magnitude of disease, a great risk of transmission locally — outside of the usual health workers and also they've been exporting cases to other countries," said Dr. David Heymann, WHO's communicable diseases chief.

The travel warning will be active for at least three weeks — double the maximum incubation period for SARS, he said.

Heymann said one other country, which he did not name, may be added to the list by Monday.

The tightening of international travel marks the first time a location outside of Asia has been targeted. Toronto, which was the first place outside Asia that the disease was detected, has always been a special concern to health officials because of its continued spread in the community despite tough measures.

"Toronto last week had an exportation which set up a cluster of five cases in health workers in another country. This is what called it again to our attention," said Heymann.

China ordered all public schools in its capital closed Wednesday, leaving almost 2 million students to study at home following a major jump in the number of reported SARS cases in the city.

The Health Ministry announced nine new fatalities Wednesday — seven of them in Beijing alone, reports CBS News Correspondent Barry Petersen, raising mainland China's death toll from severe acute respiratory syndrome to 106.

The school closure begins Thursday and lasts for two weeks through what would have been the May Day school holiday. The Beijing Morning News said students with Internet access would receive lessons at home, and teachers would be required to come to work to supervise their studies.

Beijing newspapers cited a government notice that said the move was meant to prevent the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome, which has killed at least 28 people in the Chinese capital. The closure will effect about 1.7 million students.

On Tuesday, Hong Kong reopened most secondary schools three weeks after they were closed to help contain the ailment.

Hong Kong government officials say the numbers of new cases are already dropping steadily, though they are still in the double digits daily.

Hong Kong reported 24 new cases Wednesday, bringing its total to 1,458, although 522 people have now recovered and been discharged.

Hong Kong desperately wants the WHO to lift the advisory, which has devastated the travel and tourism industry.

Hoping to ease the economic strains from SARS, Hong Kong officials said they will temporarily cut taxes, lower some charges and guarantee bank loans as part of a $1.5 billion assistance package.

Organizers of the Shanghai International Auto Show announced Wednesday it would close Thursday, three days earlier than planned, in order to "ensure the safety and health" of visitors.

Studies by Hong Kong researchers showed the SARS virus can survive for at least 24 hours on a surface coughed on or touched by a victim, longer than the three hours some had previously thought.

"The virus is very obstinate. It is very difficult to kill," microbiologist John Tam of the Chinese University of Hong Kong said in a radio interview broadcast Wednesday.