Four thousand people have been ordered to stay home under quarantine in Beijing as the Sars outbreak in the Chinese capital worsens.
Thousands of students have also been banned from leaving the city, a second major hospital has been sealed off and the beginning of the country's football season has been delayed.
Patients and 2,000 workers were said to be under observation at the People's Hospital of Peking University in Beijing, where more than 100 people suffering from Sars are being treated.
There were also reports of panic buying of food stocks in Beijing.
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome has killed 264 people worldwide, including 110 in China.
There have been 16 deaths in Toronto, Canada, where officials are fighting a World Health Organisation warning against travelling to their city.
Two new deaths have also been recorded in the Philippines.
In Britain, the Government has been urged to classify Sars alongside cholera and smallpox so that people arriving in the UK with symptoms can be detained for treatment.
Shadow health secretary Dr Liam Fox said Britain's response so far to the outbreak had been "feeble, complacent and irresponsible."
The Tories said the Government should make Sars a "notifiable disease" under the Public Health (Control of Diseases) Act 1984.
This would enable officials to force people to get treatment, destroy material exposed to the disease and make it a public duty not to expose others to risk.
But chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson said all six cases in Britain so far had been detected quickly and brought under control.
"We are in very, very close daily contact with the World Health Organisation and the other countries involved and, far from being feeble or complacent, we are working very, very hard," he said.
The British Medical Association urged people not to panic about Sars and said "all appropriate steps" were being taken to deal with it.
!
Thousands of students have also been banned from leaving the city, a second major hospital has been sealed off and the beginning of the country's football season has been delayed.
Patients and 2,000 workers were said to be under observation at the People's Hospital of Peking University in Beijing, where more than 100 people suffering from Sars are being treated.
There were also reports of panic buying of food stocks in Beijing.
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome has killed 264 people worldwide, including 110 in China.
There have been 16 deaths in Toronto, Canada, where officials are fighting a World Health Organisation warning against travelling to their city.
Two new deaths have also been recorded in the Philippines.
In Britain, the Government has been urged to classify Sars alongside cholera and smallpox so that people arriving in the UK with symptoms can be detained for treatment.
Shadow health secretary Dr Liam Fox said Britain's response so far to the outbreak had been "feeble, complacent and irresponsible."
The Tories said the Government should make Sars a "notifiable disease" under the Public Health (Control of Diseases) Act 1984.
This would enable officials to force people to get treatment, destroy material exposed to the disease and make it a public duty not to expose others to risk.
But chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson said all six cases in Britain so far had been detected quickly and brought under control.
"We are in very, very close daily contact with the World Health Organisation and the other countries involved and, far from being feeble or complacent, we are working very, very hard," he said.
The British Medical Association urged people not to panic about Sars and said "all appropriate steps" were being taken to deal with it.
!
