- (AFP) - The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)
virus returned to haunt China for the first time in six months as a suspected
case in southern Guangdong province was upgraded to a confirmed case by
senior health officials.
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- "The case has been confirmed," Feng Shaoming,
spokesman for the Guangdong Center for Disease Control, told AFP. "Our
experts at the Center for Disease Control have made many tests and they
are all positive."
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- SARS triggered a worldwide health crisis after emerging
in Guangdong in November last year, causing 774 deaths and more than 8,000
infections, the vast majority in Asia.
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- Feng said three experts from the World Health Organisation
(WHO) were in Guangdong's provincial capital of Guangzhou Tuesday and were
going over the test results.
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- He acknowledged that the case could not be officially
upgraded to a confirmed case until the Ministry of Health made a formal
announcement.
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- "So far the Ministry of Health has not announced
it, nor has the World Health Organization (WHO). I don't know when they
will, it is up to them, but our experts here have confirmed it."
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- In its daily SARS report Tuesday, the ministry said no
new suspected, clinically confirmed or confirmed cases of SARS had been
reported nationwide from 10 am Monday to 10 am Tuesday.
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- "According to reports from across the country at
present there is only one suspected case of SARS and no clinically confirmed
or confirmed cases," the ministry said.
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- Wang Maowu, director of disease control at the national-level
Chinese Centre for Disease Control, told AFP an official statement was
likely to be issued Wednesday.
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- Roy Wadia, WHO's Beijing-based spokesman said that the
WHO was trying to contact their ministry counterparts and reiterated that
the WHO would be prudent in verifying the test results.
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- "We are trying to get confirmation with the Ministry
of Health," Wadia said.
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- "So far we have no official word ourselves."
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- China's health ministry announced Saturday the discovery
of a suspected SARS case in a 32-year-old man in Guangzhou, near where
the virus was first detected in Foshan city on November 16 last year.
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- Panyu city, where the freelance journalist, identified
only as Luo, comes from is barely 40 kilometres (24.8 miles) from Foshan.
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- None of the 42 people that came in close contact with
Luo nor the 39 who had normal contact have developed fever or other abnormal
reactions, the ministry said, adding that nine people have been removed
from medical observation.
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- It said Luo was in a stable condition and had had a normal
temperature for seven consuective days.
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- Luo developed a fever on December 16 and was hospitalized
with pneumonia in the right lung on December 20.
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- Scientists suspect the SARS epidemic may have originated
from wild animals sold for food in Guangdong's markets.
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- While both Singapore and Taiwan have reported SARS cases
since the epidemic petered out in July, they were traced to laboratories
where research had been conducted on the virus and not to the general population.
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- On Tuesday, the WHO team in Guangzhou met with the patient,
Hong Kong radio reported.
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- After the meeting, WHO expert Augusto Pinto told reporters
they would be carrying out detailed investigations on test results and
estimated that it would take several days to review the data.
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- SARS symptoms are similar to other respiratory diseases
with the onset of the disease only fully confirmed after a battery of tests
are taken, including tests for SARS antibodies in the patient.
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- No vaccine is yet available.
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- China has issued health notices that include five-levels
of SARS diagnoses among which are suspected cases, clinically confirmed
cases and confirmed cases.
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- In the initial outbreak in late 2002 and early this year
suspected SARS cases were routinely hospitalized and treated as full blown
cases due to the absence of a timely test for the disease, medical officials
told AFP.
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- In retrospect, an untold number of people contracted
SARS after being hospitalized with other SARS patients, while in Taiwan
nearly 100 fatalities first attributed to SARS were later rediagnosed as
non-SARS related.
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- China was the country worst affected by the SARS epidemic,
infecting 5,327 people nationwide and killing 349.
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- The disease spilled into neighboring Hong Kong where
299 died as it spread globally, devastating economies across Asia with
travel and tourism sectors losing hundreds of millions of dollars.
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