US: California officials quarantined a plane on a flight from Tokyo yesterday after four people reported symptoms of the pneumonia-like virus spreading in Asia that has killed 63 people, an airport spokeswoman said.
The American Airlines flight remained on the Tarmac of the San Jose International Airport nearly an hour after landing because the four reported feeling symptoms of the SARS illness, said spokeswoman Ms Cathy Gaskell. A total of 200 people were on board. Health officials are trying to determine what to do next, she said.
Meanwhile, a teenager's website hoax about the killer virus which has badly hit Hong Kong sparked panic food buying and financial market falls yesterday, forcing the government to deny it would isolate the entire territory.
"We have no plan to declare Hong Kong an infected area. We have adequate supplies to provide the needs of Hong Kong citizens and there is no need for any panic run on food," Director of Health Margaret Chan said.
The website had copied the format of the public Internet portal of the Mingpao, one of Hong Kong's leading newspapers, and posted a message saying that the government would declare Hong Kong "an infected place". The scare ran rapidly around the city of seven million, where 16 have died from the virus and 685 are infected. Doctors were already struggling to find the reason for a major new outbreak in one apartment block. Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) has affected almost 1,900 people in at least 12 countries, and 63 have died. But mainland China, where the virus originated four months ago, has yet to report its cases fully to the World Health Organisation. - (Reuters)