Virus Spreads in Hong Kong, Cockroaches Eyed
 

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HONG KONG (Reuters) - A deadly virus has spread to another densely populated part of Hong Kong, and a top health official warned on Tuesday that cockroaches might be carrying the respiratory disease from apartment to apartment.

Residents from at least 14 housing estates in the suburban town of Tuen Mun had been infected, a district lawmaker said, raising fears that a disease that has killed 23 people in the territory is far from contained.

Deputy Director of Health Leung Pak-yin told a radio program that cockroaches might have carried infected waste from sewerage pipes into apartments in another huge housing complex, Amoy Gardens, where more than a quarter of the city's 883 cases have occurred.

Health workers have confirmed that an infected man with kidney problems visited a relative in one Amoy Gardens block before the virus swept through the building like wildfire.

"The drainage may be the reason, it is possible that the cockroaches carried the virus into the homes," Leung said.

Doctors believe the virus is spread through droplets by sneezing and coughing or by direct contact. If it can be carried by cockroaches it would be even harder to contain.

Hong Kong, a territory of nearly seven million people, has the second highest number of infections in the world outside of mainland China, where it first emerged.

NUMBER OF ESTATES

The infections in Tuen Mun were spread over a number of housing estates, district councilor Chan Wan-sang told Reuters. Half a million people live in Tuen Mun.

"They are all from 14 different estates, but we believe the total number of people infected may be more than 14," he said.

Some of those infected in Tuen Mun were hospital staff and at least one caught it during a recent holiday to Beijing, he said.

About half of the 278 people infected in the Amoy Gardens estate come from one wing of a single block. Residents from that block have been evacuated and quarantined in isolation camps.

A government spokesman said they would be allowed to return home from Thursday if they passed medical checks and government workers had disinfected drainage pipes in the estate.

The virus has been carried around the globe by travelers. It has killed more than 100 people and infected over 2,600 in 20 countries.

The epidemic is dealing a severe blow to the Hong Kong economy, which was just starting to show signs of recovery after two harsh downturns in the last five years.