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Global health experts battle mystery disease

AFP, Hong Kong
Global health officials were battling on Tuesday to contain an outbreak of a mysterious respiratory disease which has sparked a worldwide medical alert and pin down the cause of the illness.
As airlines stepped-up surveillance of passengers in a bid to curb the spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) the Geneva-based World Health Organisation (WHO) put laboratories in 10 countries on the case.
At least four deaths -- two in Canada, one in Hong Kong and one in Vietnam -- have been attributed to the disease, which has been described as an atypical pneumonia or influenza-like illness.
Besides the four confirmed deaths, health officials also strongly suspect SARS was behind five deaths last month in China's southern Guangdong province, where the disease may have originated.
A total of 305 people were infected in Guangdong while there have been some 200 confirmed or suspected cases of SARS in the latest outbreak, according to a toll compiled by AFP from WHO figures and local sources.
Cases or suspected cases have been reported in nearly a dozen countries with Hong Kong (95), Vietnam (51) and Singapore (21) among the worst affected.
No cases have been reported in the United States but the Centres for Disease Control (CDC) has heightened surveillance, preparing health alert cards to be given at airports to travellers returning from Southeast Asia.
Eight CDC scientists have been deployed to assist the WHO "to understand the cause of this illness and how to prevent its spread," said CDC director Julie Gerberding.
They will assist 11 laboratories in 10 countries mobilised by the WHO in a global detective effort aimed at identifying the cause of the disease, which may be a previously unknown virus or a new strain of influenza.
"These are the world's best laboratories working together to see if they can find a diagnosis for this disease," said David Heymann, WHO's executive director for communicable diseases.
In Singapore, Health Minister Lim Hng Kiang said Tuesday that the outbreak in the city-state was under control, although he appealed to Singaporeans not to visit Hong Kong, Hanoi or Guangdong province for the moment.
"Lately the situation is under control," he said. "There is no reason to panic because we have contained the situation."
In Australia, officials said Tuesday a 47-year-old woman and a 44-year-old man in the eastern state of Victoria and a woman in her 50s in the western city of Perth were being treated in hospital isolation wards for suspected SARS.