Health chief: Expect more UK Sars cases

There will be more cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome in Britain before the virus subsides, the Government's chief medical officer warned yesterday.

As countries across the world imposed even stricter measures to control the lethal infection, including the closure of all cinemas and theatres in Beijing, Professor Sir Liam Donaldson said the virus that caused Sars was unpredictable and little understood. He said there was no way to predict how many people it might infect.

"I think there will inevitably be more cases of Sars in this country ... The criterion of success will be how we contain the secondary spread beyond the initial traveller who comes in. We can't close our borders to the rest of the world. We need to keep all our options in play," Sir Liam said.

But Taiwan did just that yesterday, closing its borders to visitors from Hong Kong, China, Singapore and Canada after recording its first death, while the Philippines gave officials powers to detain people who violated quarantine.

Twelve more deaths were reported in Hong Kong yesterday, equalling the city's highest total in a day. Eight of China's nine new deaths were in Beijing. Hundreds of construction workers are labouring round the clock to build an isolation camp on the outskirts of Beijing, which will be able to take 1,000 people. Sars has killed at least 318 people worldwide, out of more than 4,600 infected.

Sir Liam answered critics who have claimed the panic is doing more damage than the disease, saying in an interview with The Independent that protecting the public's health had to be the priority.

"I remain uneasy about the position in the UK," he said. "It is unpredictable. It may get better or worse but we have to assume it may get worse. It is difficult to know where [Sars] stands in the hierarchy of public health villains. We need to learn from events in places like Toronto where it has got significantly out of its box."

But he rejected charges by Liam Fox, the shadow Health Secretary, that the Government was complacent in the face of the threat. Dr Fox arrived from Australia last week without being subjected to medical checks.

The Chief Medical Officer said: "We have had six cases here and none would have been detected by exit or entry screening. The idea that we can block the entry of Sars risks taking our eye off the ball ... Getting a high level of surveillance is the priority."

He said there could be a case for making Sars a notifiable disease, which would give the Government powers to control sufferers and their families, but he said the system was slow and outdated.

Gro Harlem Brundtland, director general of the World Health Organisation, said yesterday there was a "window of opportunity" to stop Sars. Asked on BBC's Breakfast with Frost if an Independent report last week was accurate in saying this was the first global epidemic of the 21st century, she said: "Yes I think this is correct and it will shortly be seen that way."