KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Did the SARS epidemic spread worldwide from a hallway in a Hong Kong hotel? Well, investigators suspect that, and CNN's Tom Mintier reports on it.</s>TOM MINTIER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Investigators from the World Health Organization say this is where it all started here in Hong Kong. The Metropol Hotel in Calhoun (ph), in a hallway on or about February 22. A Chinese doctor, already infected with SARS, was visiting Hong Kong from southern China. He is believed to have first passed the virus to other guests at the hotel. A guest then carried the virus on to Canada and Singapore, accelerating the worldwide spread of SARS. Dr. Heinz Feldmann headed up one of many teams of investigators for the</s>WHO. DR. HEINZ FELDMANN, WHO INVESTIGATOR: The event obviously happened in the hallway. That is, at least, the major conclusion. Something must have happened in the hallway. Virus must have been secreted or brought into the hallway. That was the source of infection for the others.</s>MINTIER: Around March 21, scientists believe the virus moved rapidly through the sewage system of a large housing block in Hong Kong. On April 22, Feldmann and his WHO team arrived and checked out both the hotel and the AmWay Gardens (ph) housing complex. At the housing complex, more than 300 residents were confirmed as SARS infected, 30 of them later died. Investigators say a dry sewage drain combined with a large exhaust fan may have allowed SARS to spread.</s>FELDMANN: The only time you could have drawn material out of the soil site (ph) into your unit was if the bathroom door was closed, the trap was not in place, and the fan was on.</s>MINTIER (on camera): The WHO environmental investigation team concluded that what it called an unfortunate sequence of events may have caused the spread of the virus. A drain trap that is normally filled with water may have been dry. What on the surface sounds so simple may have had the combined effect of spreading a disease far from where it started. Tom Mintier, CNN, Hong Kong.
WHO Investigators Track SARS Source to Hallway in Hong Kong