"Today, one of the most important means of spreading diseases around the globe is air travel," said David Heymann, executive director of WHO's communicable diseases programs..

Heymann identified the three areas as having a "high magnitude of disease, a great risk of transmission locally outside the usual health workers ... and also there is exporting of cases."

The advisory against nonessential travel to these areas will be in effect for three weeks. It is an extension of previous travel warnings to Hong Kong and China's Guangdong Province, where severe acute respiratory syndrome was first reported.

With fears over the deadly illness taking grip, Chinese scientists have been mapping the genetic code from samples of the SARS virus in the hope of finding clues on treating and ultimately preventing it.

In doing so, they said, they have found considerable variations between samples taken in Beijing -- which has reported scores of new cases in recent days -- and samples taken in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong.

Li Wei with the Beijing Genomics Institute said scientists will study more samples before drawing any conclusions, noting it's unclear whether the mutation of the virus has direct links to its strength.

"Our finding will help the development of a SARS vaccine and the selection of appropriate medicine in treating patients," Li said Wednesday, although he added he's not expecting a vaccine anytime soon. Schools close; CDC in Canada

In Beijing, authorities announced that almost 2 million students will have their classes suspended for two weeks, starting Thursday in an effort to stem SARS.

Beijing's top official urged an all-out effort to quarantine all potentially affected people, the state-run People's Daily reported. The WHO reports 2,001 confirmed cases in mainland China, including 92 deaths, and 1,434 cases in Hong Kong, with 99 deaths.

The WHO's travel warning comes a day after a similar announcement from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In addition to previous alerts for travelers to and from countries where the disease continues to spread, the CDC issued an alert Tuesday for travel to Canada. The alert advises travelers to avoid health-care settings and other places where people with SARS might be.

A CDC team was in Toronto on Wednesday to begin work focused on tracking the spread of SARS in health-care settings. Ontario's Ministry of Health reported another death from SARS, which would bring the Canadian total to 15.

By: DocMemory
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