Deadly pneumonia linked to China flu

The lethal strain of pneumonia that is causing panic in the Far East was linked for the first time yesterday to the outbreak of a mystery flu-like illness in China last year by the World Health Organisation.

The Chinese authorities said the disease had killed at least 34 people in China since November – 31 in the south and three in Beijing – and 792 people had developed symptoms of pneumonia. Of those, 680 were in Guangzhou, capital of the southern Guangdong province where the disease is believed to have originated. Previously they had said only five people had died in the region.

The disclosure came as authorities in Singapore announced the state's first two deaths from severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) and ordered all schools to shut until 6 April. It is the first time schools have been closed since a polio outbreak in the 1940s.

More than 740 people in the state are already quarantined. They are relatives or contacts of victims of the disease.

In Hong Kong, the deputy director of health, Leung Pak-yin, told a news conference that the number of people infected was continuing to climb and people from all walks of life had been infected. "If you are on the plane and an infected person is sitting either behind or in front of you and he coughs, you can get infected," he said.

Eleven people have died from the illness in Hong Kong since the outbreak began in February. Mr Leung said infections had risen to 319 from 290 on Tuesday, with 316 suffering severe pneumonia.

A spokesman for the WHO said the most worrying aspect of the disease was that it attacked health workers. "We cannot have our hospitals put out of action," he said. The other concern was that it consumed "an enormous amount of medical resources", with many patients requiring ventilation and intensive care.

In China, Dr Meirion Evans, a member of a WHO team that has studied the cases in the Guangdong province but not yet those in Beijing said: "Everything we've seen so far indicates it's the same disease." The WHO said yesterday that it was not recommending any restrictions on air travel. Thousands of passengers had travelled on flights with people infected with Sars and there were no cases of the infection being passed on, it said.