No SARS pneumonia case reported in Morocco

No case of killer SARS pneumonia has been detected in Morocco, Moroccan Public Health Minister, Mohamed Cheikh Biadillah, said on Wednesday.

"So far no such case was detected in the country," the Minister told MAP news agency, underlining that measures have been taken by his department to avert the threat, citing intensified control in border points.

The disease first broke out in South East Asia. In this connection, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned travellers on Wednesday to avoid Hong Kong and the southern Chinese province of Guangdong because of the mounting toll from SARS pneumonia.

In its first ever such travel alert, the United Nations body said there was evidence that in Hong Kong at least the disease was also being spread by the environment -- possibly the water or sewage systems -- and not just by close personal contact.

This could increase the rate of contagion in an area where visitors had already caught the illness and taken it back home with them. The disease has killed 75 people worldwide and infected nearly 2,300, most of them in China and Hong Kong.

SARS, which is proving fatal in around four percent of cases, is believed to have begun in Guangdong in November before spreading to Hong Kong and then other parts of South-East Asia.

The disease, which starts with a fever and a dry cough and for which there are no fully effective drugs, subsequently spread to Canada, where six people have died, and to other parts of North America and Europe, where no one has died so far.