Travel - Pneumonia outbreak advice

Over the past few days we have received many reports of people cancelling their trips to Hong Kong because of fears over SARS, the variant pneumonia. There has been a lot of media generated hysteria but the reality is not nearly as serious as might be supposed. APLF organisers report that the situation in Hong Kong is that 280 cases have been identified and eleven people have died, mainly the elderly who already had other complications. (Note Hong Kong has a population of 7 million and the percentage of identified cases is barely 0.004%.) A daily update can also be seen at http://www.aplf.com In terms of security, Hong Kong is designated by the US Government as a 'low risk security area' and enjoys one of the safest environments in the world today. Even in these difficult geo-political times, Hong Kong maintains that status.