April 10, 2003	Thursday	Safar 7, 1424

HONG KONG, April 9: Pilots of Air India, India’s international carrier, have refused to fly to Hong Kong following the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), a company official said on Wednesday.

“The pilots have refused to fly to Hong Kong,” Air India spokesman Jitendra Bhargav said. “They are saying we will not fly to Hong Kong because of SARS. The matter has now gone to the labour court.”

Health Minister Sushma Swaraj told parliament’s lower house that an Australian woman was being screened, but she did not seem to be suffering from SARS.

Officials in the western city of Bombay said an American woman who was hospitalised on Monday with suspected SARS was in fact suffering from flu.

Rebecca Raleigh tested negative for SARS, Maharahstra state Health Minister Digvijay Khanvilka said.

Air India spokesman Bhargav said they will operate flights to Hong Kong using pilots who are in management positions and are not members of the union that refused to fly to Hong Kong.

He said the airline has, however, cut the number of weekly flights to Hong Kong from the normal five to two because of a 70 percent drop in demand on that sector.

42 new cases: Two more people have died in Hong Kong after contracting the SARS virus and 42 new cases of the illness have been detected, the government said Wednesday.

The new deaths bring the total death toll in Hong Kong from Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) to 27.

Deputy Director of Health Leung Pak-yin told reporters the victims were a woman of 86 and a man aged 35. He said both were already suffering from other chronic illnesses.

Later on Wednesday hospital authorities said a 52-year-old man had died shortly after being transferred from Shenzhen in southern China. The cause of death was not known but Shenzhen authorities suspected the man, reportedly an American, was suffering from SARS.

The man’s six-year-old son was also hospitalised with an unknown condition and was stable, a spokeswoman said, adding that the cause of the father’s death would not be known until a post-mortem examination had been carried out.

“NDH (North District Hospital) has strictly followed the established guidelines on management of patients with infectious disease and reported to the Department of Health for follow-up action,” a statement from the hospital said.

A total of 970 cases of the mysterious respiratory illness have now been detected in the former British colony.—AFP