Posted on 12/17/2003 6:49:22 AM PST by Orange1998
Taiwan Medical Researcher Tests Positive for SARS 6 minutes ago Add World - Reuters to My Yahoo!
By Alice Hung
TAIPEI (Reuters) - A medical researcher in Taiwan has tested positive for SARS (news - web sites), the first case in Greater China since the flu-like virus killed hundreds of people and battered the region's economies this year.
Officials said on Wednesday the man possibly contracted SARS about two weeks ago in a laboratory in the Taipei military hospital where he worked. He showed the first symptoms after he returned home from a seminar in Singapore.
The virus can be highly infectious and authorities in Singapore, the Southeast Asian city state that registered the world's only other new case in September, ordered 70 people into quarantine although no news case had been found there.
Officials in China also said they had detected no new SARS infections although the Ministry of Health said the Taiwan case "sounds alarm bells." The World Health Organization (news - web sites) said the incident appeared to be an isolated case.
"The patient had an accident in his lab on December 5 because he was hurrying to complete an experiment before going to Singapore," said Su Ih-jen, director of Taiwan's Center for Disease Control at the Department of Health.
The 44-year-old patient was stable and had no difficulty breathing. He had been in Singapore from December 7 to December 10, a Taiwan health official said.
Authorities have warned there could be a resurgence of the virus in the Northern Hemisphere winter, casting a shadow over economies that have bounced back from the crisis and are poised for strong growth in 2004.
News of the case spooked investors who suffered huge losses during the SARS epidemic. Stocks in Taiwan ended down 2.3 percent, while Singapore shares dipped by more than one percent. Airline stocks were among the worst affected, reflecting wider fears about the travel and tourism industry.
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome first appeared in southern China in late 2002, and was quickly spread round the world by travelers.
The virus killed more than 800 people, mostly in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and Canada. It infected 8,000 people in nearly 30 countries before the World Health Organization declared the outbreak over on July 5.
STUDYING SARS
The patient in Taiwan, a senior scientist in the Institute of Preventive Medicine at the National Defense University, had been working (news - web sites) on a government-commissioned project to study SARS.
Thirty-seven people died directly from SARS in Taiwan this year, and a further 37 deaths were related to SARS. The latest case was the island's first since the WHO lifted a travel warning in July.
Singapore, which has taken stringent precautions to avoid a recurrence of the disease, said the 70 ordered into quarantine were people who may have had contact with the Taiwan scientist.
The Singapore Health Ministry urged hospitals and clinics to step up vigilance but said there was no cause for alarm and there were no new SARS cases in the city-state.
Singapore's last known SARS case was a 27-year-old medical student who caught the disease in September while studying the virus at a government-run laboratory. He recovered.
Taiwan said there was little chance of the virus spreading from the one case. "I urge the public not to panic as this is just an isolated case that occurred from an accident in a laboratory," said Health Minister Chen Chien-jen.
· Taiwan Medical Researcher Tests Positive for SARS Reuters - 6 minutes ago · Singapore Quarantines 70 After Taiwan SARS Scare Reuters - 31 minutes ago · 70 people quarantined in Singapore following Taiwan SARS scare AFP - 2 hours, 1 minute ago
"The patient's family members have been confined to their home and haven't developed any symptoms. The chances of it spreading to the greater population are not high," Chen said.
In Geneva, WHO spokesman Ian Simpson said the U.N. health agency had been informed by Taiwan authorities that the researcher had been isolated and was recovering.
"All his contacts have been traced and so far there is no sign of anyone else being sick," Simpson told Reuters Television.
TEMPERATURE CHECKS
None of the patient's six co-workers traveling with him to Singapore had developed symptoms and it was unnecessary to quarantine passengers on the December 10 flight, Chen said.
Most scientists say SARS probably spread from farms in China, perhaps jumping from animals such as civet cats, ducks, pigs and rats to humans. Experts say the biggest risk is of another jump from animals to humans.
China pressed health departments to be more vigilant about laboratory safety saying the Taiwan case had sounded a warning.
"The case of a laboratory researcher in Taiwan infected by SARS sounds alarm bells on the mainland," China's Ministry of Health said on its Web site, www.moh.gov.cn.
China has been on heightened alert for the return of SARS with winter setting in. Top epidemiologists have said the virus is certain to make a comeback and some public venues have resumed temperature checks. (Additional reporting by Jason Szep in Singapore and Nick Macfie in Beijing)
Smart move.
Greater China
????
They can simply say the "Orient," the "Far East," "East Asia," "Asia," or something descriptive without making up a new term. If I invented the term "Greater USA," how does a reader know that I mean, for instance, the English-speaking country in North America that isn't USA? Can I say "Greater Mexico" to mean the rest of Central America below Mexico?
In fact, why not just call it the first case in the world (if there haven't been cases lately in other countries)?
No, because "Greater Mexico" includes all of the southwestern U.S., too.
These researchers get a little careless. I'd be in full bio gear just driving to the facility. LOL
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