WHO Cautions Against Visiting Beijing, Toronto

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, April 24, 2003

WHO Cautions Against Visiting Beijing, Toronto

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The World Health Organization in its latest travel advisory warned travelers to avoid visiting Beijing and Canada's Toronto, saying the drastic step is needed to halt the spread of the dangerous new lung infection, SARS.

The warning, the latest indication of rising alarm about the disease, significantly expanded the UN agency's SARS travel alert and marked the first time in its 55-year history WHO has told the public to avoid Beijing or any place in North America. WHO also added the Chinese province of Shanxi to its list of places to avoid.

"We're doing this to try to stop this disease from becoming endemic," said David L. Heymann, executive director of WHO's communicable diseases program. "We want to stop cases from spreading around the world."

The decision was denounced by officials in Toronto, which has suffered a sharp drop in tourism because of a large SARS outbreak, and was received as another blow to Beijing, which is still seeing an growing cases of SARS.

WHO previously warned travelers to avoid unnecessary visits to Hong Kong and the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, marking the first time the agency had advised people to stay away from any places because of a disease.

WHO officials said the expanded advisory was necessary because the SARS virus was continuing to spread -- and was spreading more widely than had been thought -- in those areas. WHO will review the advisory in three weeks.

"There's evidence of transmission outside the very close community -- for example, outside the hospital workers and their family -- and there's evidence of exportation outside the area," said Denis Aitken, a top WHO official.

Source: agencies

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