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Russia first case sars { May 28 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=574&ncid=721&e=1&u=/nm/20030528/wl_nm/sars_dchttp://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=574&ncid=721&e=1&u=/nm/20030528/wl_nm/sars_dc
Yahoo! News Wed, May 28, 2003
World - Reuters
Russia Reports First SARS Case During Hu Visit
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By Jeremy Page
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia confirmed its first case of SARS (news - web sites) on the border with China Wednesday in a major embarrassment for visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao as he tried to convince the world his country can contain the disease.
Just hours earlier, Hu told students in Moscow that China had instituted strict measures to stop the spread of the deadly virus and could maintain rapid economic growth despite warnings SARS could knock up to 2 percentage points off GDP (news - web sites) growth.
Hu is in Russia on the first leg of a four-nation tour designed to boost his international profile and repair the damage done by an official cover-up of the SARS outbreak, which started in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong.
On his first trip overseas since becoming president in March, he will rub shoulders with world leaders, including President Bush (news - web sites), at celebrations this weekend marking the 300th anniversary of St Petersburg, Russia's second city.
Hu met Russian President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) Tuesday and discussed ways to stop SARS spreading to Russia. It has killed more than 740 people and infected more than 8,000 around the world.
But in a blow to Hu's public relations campaign, Russia announced Wednesday its first confirmed case of SARS in a man living in Blagoveshchensk on the Amur river, which forms the frontier with China. He had been under observation for weeks.
"Today we have officially registered one man who is infected with SARS," Russia's top epidemiologist, Gennady Onishchenko, said in an interview on Rossiya state television.
"Today we officially say that, according to all laboratory tests, we confirm the diagnosis."
Russia closed dozens of checkpoints on the border with China and Mongolia until June 4, Itar-Tass news agency said.
Russia has a 2,280-mile land border with China and a 2,178-mile border with Mongolia, which has also reported a number of SARS victims. Russians have been bracing for their first case for weeks.
CHINA FIGHTS SPITTING
In China, health authorities said SARS had killed four more people and infected another four -- the lowest rise in new infections since the government pledged to report accurate figures more than a month ago.
The Hong Kong government reported one more death from SARS and two new infections.
China is now scrambling to stop it spreading to the vast countryside where most of its 1.3 billion people live.
It has even deployed a high-tech van loaded with monitoring equipment to police spitting, which can spread the virus, the official Beijing Evening News said.
Hu declared war on SARS on April 20 and sacked two senior officials for covering up the extent of the outbreak.
He told students at the Moscow State Institute of International Affairs the virus would not slow economic growth.
"We can definitely overcome these temporary difficulties and win the war against SARS, while maintaining the pace of economic development and continuing to contribute to the promotion of regional and global economic growth," Hu said in a speech.
"Although SARS has had a certain negative impact on the development of some regions and industries in China ... the momentum of China's economic development remains strong."
Economists say SARS has hit foreign investment and retail sales. The economy grew 8.9 percent in April from a year ago, down from 9.9 percent year-on-year in the first quarter. China is keeping its official 2003 growth target at 7 percent.
Song Guoqing, chief economist at China Stock Exchange Executive Council, an independent think tank, said he thought the economy could have grown by 10 percent without SARS but now predicted growth of 8 percent.
"SARS's impact on economic growth could last until early next year," he said.
Hu is expected to repeat his upbeat message with other leaders on his 11-day tour of Russia, France, Mongolia and Kazakhstan. After St Petersburg, he goes to France for a meeting of the Group of Eight top economic nations from June 1-3. (Additional reporting by Maria Golovnina in Moscow and Kevin Yao in Beijing)
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