New Zealander suspected of having Sars in China

7.30am

BEIJING - New Zealand health authorities are seeking more information about a Kiwi suspected of catching the deadly Sars virus while on a an eight-day tour of China.

The man is quarantined in a hospital in the northwestern province of Shaanxi, the official Xinhua news agency reported this morning.

Experts diagnosed the unnamed 39-year-old as having severe Acute respiratory Syndrome on Monday, it said.

He had been on a tour from the capital, Beijing, to the central city of Wuhan and west to Chongqing before going to the tourist city of Xi'an.

He was detected as a suspected case on Sunday, when he was about to board Hainan Airlines flight HU7881 to Beijing from Xi'an, home of the famed Terracotta Warriors.

Health officials in Shaanxi asked the airline and the city to register and investigate the names and contacts of all travellers on the same flights with the patient, the news agency said.

Authorities asked for the hotel where the patient stayed to be disinfected. Tour guides, bus drivers and those who had close contact with the New Zealand man have been quarantined, it said.

The case came as China stepped up efforts to prevent travellers from carrying Sars around the country, especially during the May 1 holiday, which the government recently shortened to discourage mass travel.

On Tuesday, the national tourism authority said travel agencies should focus on anti-Sars campaigns instead of promoting tourism from now to May 31, Xinhua said.

It also urged tour groups to avoid rural and remote areas, where experts fear public health facilities are inadequately prepared to handle an outbreak of Sars.

Shaanxi has logged one other SARS case -- a local Xi'an female resident was reported on Monday, it said.

- REUTERS