- GUANGZHOU, China (Reuters)
- A waitress in southern China was declared a suspected SARS case Thursday,
and in Hong Kong two members of a TV crew tested negative for the deadly
virus, amid fears of an outbreak days ahead of Asia's biggest holiday.
-
- China's Health Ministry said the 20-year-old waitress
in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, was suspected of having Severe
Acute Respiratory Syndrome after having been in hospital for nearly two
weeks. A seafood restaurant was besieged by reporters after media reports
identified it as the establishment where she worked.
-
- "Forty-eight people who had close contact with her
have been isolated and 52 others who had normal contacts have been observed,"
the provincial health department said.
-
- None displayed SARS symptoms, which include a high fever
and dry cough.
-
- A 32-year-old television producer confirmed this week
as China's first SARS case since last year and identified only as Luo has
recovered and left hospital Thursday.
-
- Three television workers from Hong Kong station TVB had
visited an animal market and a hospital where Luo had been treated before
they returned to Hong Kong on December 30 with fevers. They were held in
hospital isolation wards.
-
- Two have since tested negative for SARS, a Hong Kong
government spokesman said. Test results on the third were pending, he added.
-
- The SARS scare is emerging just ahead of the Lunar New
Year holidays, when an estimated 1.89 billion journeys are forecast to
be made by rail, road, ship and air around China.
-
- SARS killed about 800 people worldwide last year, nearly
350 of them in China.
-
- LUNAR NEW YEAR SCARE
-
- Luo's case has been linked to a coronavirus also found
in wild civet cats, prized as a delicacy in southern China and sold in
crowded markets. He denies eating civet and the source of his infection
remains a mystery, complicating the larger question of whether the virus
has begun to spread again.
-
- "They are still searching. They still have no answers,"
Beijing-based World Health Organization spokesman Roy Wadia told Reuters.
-
- Health officials this week banned the sale of civet cats
and began a cull to prevent the spread of the disease, which has led to
stepped up health screening at airports and border crossings in Asia.
-
- Media reports said the waitress from the central province
of Henan had been serving wild game, but provincial health officials declined
to comment.
-
- The woman first reported a fever on December 26 and was
receiving treatment under quarantine at the Guangzhou No. 8 People's Hospital,
one of three city hospitals designated to handle SARS patients.
-
- Shopkeepers near the seafood restaurant reported seeing
men in white protective gear moving into the downtown building and of co-workers
being held in a nearby shophouse before being taken away by bus.
-
- The operators of the restaurant denied she worked there.
-
- Authorities have stepped up protective measures for medical
staff, provincial health officials said. A WHO team was on its way to Guangzhou
to investigate.
-
- "We think that there is at this point no significant
public health threat," said the WHO's Robert Breiman. "What our
interest is in now is to determine what sort of steps can be taken to maintain
that low public health risk."
-
- China has given a Saturday deadline for the slaughter
of about 10,000 civet cats and has launched a rat and cockroach extermination
campaign.
-
- With the return of the northern winter, health officials
have been watching closely for a reemergence of SARS, which experts say
is spread by droplets in coughs and sneezes.
-
- Two previous cases, in Singapore and Taiwan, were linked
to medical research accidents.
-
- Neighbors in Luo's apartment building at Riverview Gardens,
a leafy 10,000-unit haven in a middle-class Guangzhou suburb, seemed unconcerned
at his return.
-
- "You read the papers and people say 'wah, SARS',
but I say it's just another kind of flu," said Chen Qiuyou, a front
desk guard.
-
- "So we don't know where it came from. What's the
big deal?"
-
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