An employee at a Beijing laboratory has become the latest person confirmed to be suffering from Sars in China, the country’s health ministry has revealed. The new case takes Red China’s number of confirmed Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome cases to six in the latest outbreak that began in March. One of the victims died on Friday. Another three patients are hospitalised as suspected Sars cases. All the cases can be traced back to the same Beijing laboratory. The laboratory has since been shut down while investigations are carried out. Hundreds of people have been put in isolation in Beijing and Anhui since the first case was reported. But the World Health Organisation (WHO) - which is helping investigate the latest outbreak - has said there is no threat to the public.
"We are reassured that we haven’t seen this pop up in other regions of the country who don't work in a laboratory which are not linked to these people," a WHO spokesman said. Travellers at Chinese railway stations and airports were being screened for Sars symptoms to ensure the disease remained contained, as millions left major cities for the May Day holiday. Airports and train stations across the country installed thermal scanners to check passengers for fever - a telltale Sars symptom. An outbreak of Sars last year, which killed nearly 800 people worldwide, led the government to cancel the May Day holiday. But this year Chinese officials are confident that Beijing will be safe over the holiday week. "Beijing is now a safe enclave, where millions of local residents and tourists from both home and overseas will have a very joyous and safe holiday," Communist controlled Xinhua news agency quoted the deputy director of Beijing’s health bureau as saying.
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