The World Health Organization (WHO) advised against travel to Hong Kong and China's Guangdong province as the worldwide death toll from a mysterious respiratory virus rose to at least 75.
"We've decided to make a recommendation that people who are planning travel to both Hong Kong Kong and Guangdong, which is adjacent to Hong Kong, consider postponing their travel to another time," Dr. David Heymann, head of the WHO's communicable diseases unit, told reporters in Geneva.
He said the WHO was issuing the extraordinary travel advisory "because of the fact that we don't completely understand the means of transmission in Hong Kong and because since March 15, tourists and businessman have returned from Hong Kong to their countries with infection."
The advice does not apply to other areas, such as Singapore, Vietnam or Canada, where health authorities appear to be managing to control the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Heymann said.
A number of countries have already advised their nationals not to visit Hong Kong and other affected areas and the United States said Tuesday it would pay for US diplomats and their families to leave southern China and Hong Kong.
As the WHO issued its travel advisory, China reported nine new deaths from SARS and finally granted permission to the UN health agency to visit Guangdong, where the disease is believed to have originated in November.
Canada, grappling with the largest outbreak of SARS outside of Asia, also reported two more deaths from the disease and beleagured Hong Kong prepared to quarantine more residents.
Canadian officials said two more people had died of SARS in the Toronto area, bringing the death toll to six in Canada. A total of 129 probable SARS cases had been detected in Canada, with 109 of them in Ontario.
China meanwhile reported the first suspected case of SARS in Shanghai, the country's largest city, and health officials in Hunan province said the first cases had been diagnosed there, although they refused to provide any figures.
SARS has been blamed for the deaths of 75 people -- 43 in China, 16 in Hong Kong, six in Canada, four in Singapore, four in Vietnam and two in Thailand -- and more than 2,000 cases have been reported in more than 20 countries.
The outbreak of atypical pneumonia is believed to have begun in Guangdong in November, spread to Hong Kong in February and from there to other countries through airline passengers.
China has come in for criticism for its slow response to the outbreak, and the WHO described China's agreement to allow a team to visit Guangdong as a "positive development."
"Aside from allowing the visit, China has also agreed to provide the WHO daily reports and updates of the illness," Shigeru Omi, director of the Manila-based WHO Western Pacific regional office, told AFP.
"This is a very positive development for controlling the spread of SARS."
A WHO team has been in Beijing for about a week awaiting a green light from the Chinese authorities to visit Guangdong.
A statement from the Guangdong provincial government Wednesday said there had been nine deaths and 361 new cases of the disease in the province in March, bringing the total number of reported cases in mainland China to 1,167.
The statement claimed the spread of SARS in Guangdong had been "effectively controlled" although "sporadic outbreaks of the disease are still occurring."
In Hong Kong, where 685 cases of SARS have been reported, the government said two more holiday villages would be used to quarantine residents who have had contact with SARS victims.
The authorities have already moved more than 200 residents from the Amoy Gardens housing estate in Kowloon district to two camps, and the move to prepare two more camps reflects fears more people will be quarantined.
The Amoy Gardens complex was sealed off Wednesday as the investigation intensified into how the virus affected as many as 237 residents.
Before the Amoy Gardens outbreak it was believed the SARS virus was only caught through close contact, such as by inhaling droplets from somebody who had sneezed or coughed nearby.
But health experts believe the cluster at Amoy Gardens indicates the virus may be spread by touch; inhaled at some distance via fine airborne droplets; or possibly be water-borne, carried in waste-water pipes for instance.