China bans reporters from sites of deadly pig-borne disease outbreak

HONG KONG (AP) - Chinese authorities have banned local reporters from visiting areas where an outbreak of a pig-borne disease has killed 34 farmers, ordering newspapers to use dispatches from the state news agency, a Hong Kong newspaper reported Sunday.
Officials have reported a total 181 confirmed or suspected cases linked to bacteria streptococcus suis in China's southwestern Sichuan province, where farmers who handled or butchered infected pigs have been sickened in dozens of villages and towns. Symptoms include nausea, fever, vomiting, and bleeding under the skin.

Sichuan authorities have ordered local journalists to stay away from locations where the disease has surfaced, and told newspapers to carry stories as issued by the official Xinhua news agency, including the headline, Hong Kong's Ming Pao Daily News reported.

Calls to Sichuan's provincial government headquarters in Chengdu seeking confirmation of the media ban went unanswered.

Beijing was heavily criticized during its SARS outbreak for its reluctance to release information. A Sichuan journalist, quoted by Ming Pao, said Hong Kong reporters were better informed than they were about the pig disease.

Former British colony Hong Kong, which returned to Chinese rule in 1997, isn't subject to China's media controls under a special autonomy arrangement.

Much of the information about the disease has been filtering out through Hong Kong, which is briefed by China about health threats.

Hong Kong is wary about diseases spreading here from China, especially after severe acute respiratory syndrome killed 299 people in the territory in 2003 and devastated the economy.

The first cases of the pig-borne disease outbreak appeared in the city of Ziyang and elsewhere in Sichuan. The first case outside the province was reported Saturday in Guangdong, a southern Chinese province neighbouring Hong Kong.

Hong Kong has reported 11 cases of the disease since May 2004, but it wasn't clear if they were related to the Sichuan outbreak as the people infected hadn't travelled outside Hong Kong, according to the territory's Health Department.

© The Canadian Press, 2005