Socialist Republic of Vietnam

HA NOI — The Health Ministry has put its epidemic task force on the highest alert following the international outbreak of a disease that has killed one nurse and hospitalised 46 others in Viet Nam.

At an urgent meeting on Sunday, ministry officials said the task force would isolate and closely monitor patients and at-risk people while educating the public about preventative measures.

The officials suggested that people avoid gathering in public, and advised that they should wear masks and maintain high levels of personal hygiene.

"We are confident that we can contain the spread of the disease," Deputy Minister Nguyen Van Thuong said.

"The most important thing now is for people to remain calm and follow our preventative measures."

Ministry officials said a Vietnamese nurse working at the Viet Nam-France Hospital died on Saturday after contracting a severe form of pneumonia that has afflicted about 150 people in Asia, North America and Europe.

The nurse had helped treat a 46-year-old Chinese-American businessman who had been hospitalised with the disease in Ha Noi after travelling from Shanghai, via Hong Kong.

The man died last Thursday after he was evacuated to a hospital in Hong Kong.

Officials said all of the other patients had been completely isolated, and 10 of them were showing signs of recovery.

Experts from the World Health Organisation (WHO) arrived in Ha Noi on Friday, and three Japanese quarantine experts were expected to arrive in the capital on Sunday to prevent the spread of the disease.

The illness reportedly claimed its ninth life over the weekend world wide, and the WHO issued a rare emergency warning stating that the disease does not respond to normal drugs and was travelling across the world on passenger aircraft.

The WHO described the pneumonia, known as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, as a worldwide health threat.

"Until we can get a grip on it, I don’t see how it will slow down," WHO spokesman Dick Thompson said.

"People are not responding to antibiotics or antivirals. It’s a highly contagious disease and it’s moving around by jet. It’s bad."

"The world needs to work together to find its cause, cure the sick and stop its spread," Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, the WHO’s director general, said in a statement. — VNS, March 18, 2003