Killer Pneumonia Surfaces in Europe

European airports are on red alert after a doctor from Singapore arrived in Frankfurt, Germany, displaying symptoms of a previously rare form of pneumonia that has claimed lives across Southeast Asia and beyond.

The 32-year-old doctor began showing signs of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) or atypical pneumonia during a stopover in New York, said Dr. Angela Wirtz, a health official from the Social Affairs Ministry in the German state of Hesse, where he is being treated. It is believed that he contracted the virus while treating some of the first victims of the illness in his home country -- where a total of 20 cases have now been reported.

Reports on Sunday said X-rays and lab tests showed the doctor's condition had worsened. Reinhardt Brodt, the German specialist in charge of the isolation ward at the Frankfurt University Clinic, told reporters that it was still not clear whether the doctor's illness was the mysterious SARS and that his team was continuing to treat the patient with antibiotics.

German health authorities reported that the patient's 62-year-old mother-in-law was also taken into an isolation unit after she developed a high fever but no other symptoms. At first, the man's pregnant wife did not show any signs of the illness, but on Monday she developed a fever.

Passenger risk deemed extremely low

The other 220 passengers on the flight, including 82 German tourists, were temporarily quarantined on Saturday but were later released after authorities determined their risk of infection was "extremely low." The German passengers were advised to stay at home and watch for possible symptoms.

The aircraft from New York was disinfected in Germany before the remaining passengers and crew members were transferred to another Singapore Airlines plane and allowed to continue their journey. Airports and operators across Europe are being advised to immediately report any cases of passengers who display symptoms of the illness.

In Italy, the health ministry has set up controls at the international airports in Rome and Milan while in Britain, all flights from Asian countries are to be monitored for passengers displaying any SARS symptoms.

Visitors arriving on flights from China and Singapore in Vienna airport on Sunday were advised by authorities to make appointments with their doctors. Swiss and French airports were screening for possible carriers of the virus, with specialist hospital departments on alert in France.

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome causes victims to suffer from symptoms such as coughing, high fever and shortness of breath, and has an incubation period of two to seven days.

China suspected as cradle of the disease

The outbreak is thought to have begun in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi last month after an American businessman traveling from Shanghai infected hospital workers in Hong Kong before succumbing to the disease himself. A nurse at the hospital who contracted the disease died over the weekend. However, a statement from the World Health Organization said the flu-like symptoms of the virus were similar to those of a virulent sickness found in the southern province of Guangdong in China last month, which infected 305 people and killed five.

German health official Wirtz was quick to diffuse any panic by saying that the number of deaths from SARS worldwide was negligible considering the amount of reported cases. The risks to the general population remain low, she told the Associated Press.

Her opinion was echoed by the president of the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin, which studies the outbreak of diseases in Germany. Reinhard Kurth warned of creating public unease over the disease and told the German public broadcaster ZDF that there was no reason to panic.

Victims across Asia, Canada and Europe

However, the spread of the virus across Southeast Asia has prompted the World Health Organization to take the rare step of issuing an emergency travel warning amid fears that the mystery virus may be spreading out of control.

In Hong Kong, 49 people -- including 42 medical workers -- are thought to have the virus. Authorities in Taipei, Taiwan, have reported three cases. On Sunday, WHO officials said the deaths of a mother and child returning from Hong Kong had been reported in Canada. Reports on Monday also suggested that three new cases of SARS had been identified in Switzerland and Slovenia.

Though experts are working on isolating the cause of the disease, the organization's executive director of communicable diseases, David Heyman, told reporters that his work was being hampered by ignorance about the illness. "We don't know what to use with this disease because we don't know what's causing it," he said. "There is no specific antibiotic or anti-viral drug that we can yet recommend."

No treatment identified

WHO spokesman Dick Thompson told the Associated Press that the organization was extremely concerned and that, until the virus was contained, he didn't see any way of slowing its spread. "People are not responding to antibiotics or antivirals. It's a highly contagious disease and it's moving around by jet. It's bad."

In a statement issued in Geneva, Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, WHO's director general, said: "SARS is now a worldwide health threat. The world needs to work together to find its cause, cure the sick and stop its spread."