BANGKOK, Thailand — Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and the leaders of 10 Southeast Asian nations pledged closer cooperation Tuesday in the fight to contain the SARS virus as a leading World Health Organization official declared that public fears about the disease had become excessive.
A declaration released at the end of the leaders' one-day summit here included initiatives for improved exchanges of information, joint research projects and coordinated immigration and customs controls. The declaration and the comments by WHO's chief of communicable diseases, David Heymann, appeared aimed at easing the sense of panic that has gripped East Asia as the pneumonia-like illness has spread.
Also Tuesday, the WHO rescinded a warning it issued a week ago against nonessential travel to Toronto, where SARS arrived from Hong Kong in late February and has killed 21 people. However, in Asia, there was a raft of disturbing news about the spread of the disease, including 152 confirmed new cases reported in Beijing -- one of the largest single-day totals so far -- and South Korea's first presumed case.
The Korean victim, a man in his 40s, had just returned from two months of language training in Beijing, according to health officials in Seoul.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong authorities were forced to dispatch a charter aircraft to Taiwan to bring a group of 33 tourists back home two days after they all had been placed in quarantine because a 6-year-old girl traveling with the group had developed a fever.
Unlike influenza viruses that originated in East Asia and went on to kill tens of thousands of people worldwide, the SARS virus has so far proved far less easy to transmit.
It has infected only about 5,000 people globally since it was first discovered in southern China in November. Still, public concern about the disease and a desire to avoid any contact with infected areas have had a devastating effect on the economies of individual areas and the region as a whole.
The disease, whose initials stand for severe acute respiratory syndrome, has so far killed about 350 people.
"Although SARS is certainly deadly under certain conditions, the fear of SARS is worse than the disease itself," Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra told a news conference after the Bangkok summit. He described the measures agreed to by the leaders of China and the 10-member Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, as "a strong commitment to cooperation ... to restore confidence in East Asia as an important tourism and business destination."
The World Bank recently estimated that SARS would probably cost the region about $15 billion in lost economic growth this year, while other studies have predicted greater losses.
Only hours before the leaders met the media, Heymann talked to reporters about what he called "a discrepancy between the real risks of contracting SARS and the perceived risks as seen by the general public." He described the virus as one spread only through close personal contact with someone who has the disease.
"The perception of the public is that this is a disease you can get by walking down the street, and this is not so," Heymann said.
He added that he had personally not worn a surgical mask since arriving in Asia and described recommendations to wear a mask on the street as "not useful, because that's not the way it's transmitted."
Protective masks have been widely worn in Hong Kong since the SARS outbreak began there last month and were briefly declared mandatory in Thailand for anyone returning from a SARS-infected area.
Heymann also noted that Beijing's decision over the weekend to close movie theaters and restaurants in the city was not a step recommended by WHO.
"As they get more information, they will be making alterations to their response," he said.
Wen, making his first foreign trip since he took over as China's premier in mid-March, said there had been no attempt by ASEAN leaders to force an apology from Beijing because of its initial attempts to cover up the extent of the country's SARS problems -- a move that allowed the virus to spread unchecked for weeks. But he admitted there had been major shortcomings on the part of the government.
"Regarding our countermeasures, certain departments did not do enough [and] we've already learned our lesson," he said. "We understand the need for decisive measures."
Wen said there is a major effort underway in China to prevent the spread of SARS into rural areas. "I believe we will gradually turn this situation around," he said.
There was little sign of such a turnaround Tuesday in the Chinese capital, where Health Ministry officials reported the 152 new confirmed SARS infections and seven new deaths.
Beijing's caseload of SARS patients is the fastest-growing in the world, with a total of 1,347 infections and 1,358 suspected cases in addition to 66 fatalities.
