Health authorities investigate two possible SARS cases in NYC
By TARA BURGHART - The Associated Press
3/20/03 6:55 PM
NEW YORK (AP) -- Two New York City residents are possibly suffering from a mysterious respiratory illness that has killed 10 people around the world in the last three weeks, health officials announced Thursday.
The 67-year-old man and the 27-year-old woman both recently traveled to China and Hong Kong. The vast majority of the suspected cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, have occurred in Asia, and a hotel in Hong Kong is being investigated as the place the outbreak started.
The man is hospitalized and in isolation in good condition, according to Dr. Thomas Frieden, the city's health commissioner. The woman visited an emergency room after returning to New York this week but was not hospitalized and was instead told to go home and quarantine herself, Frieden said.
Frieden said both hospitals acted properly, because the man is older and more likely to become ill whereas the woman "had no reason to be hospitalized." He would not name the hospitals.
They are not linked, but both began exhibiting flu-like symptoms while abroad, health officials said.
Frieden also said the cases are not connected to a doctor from Singapore who attended a conference in New York City before being taken off a plane in Frankfurt and quarantined, suspected of having SARS.
There are now 306 people sick with the disease, according to the World Health Organization, with about half of those in Hong Kong. Not counting the New York cases, there are 13 suspected cases in the United States, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
The cause of the illness remains unknown, but experts believe the most likely explanation is a new virus. There is no known treatment.
On Thursday, health officials in Hong Kong said the global spread of the illness appears to have started with a professor who stayed in a tourist hotel there. Health officials said the other guests who caught the disease then carried it to a Hong Kong hospital, Vietnam, Singapore and Canada.
In addition to Hong Kong, the two both visited China's Guangdong province, which had an outbreak believed to be of SARS last November that sickened 300 people and killed five. The professor who stayed at the Hong Kong hotel where the outbreak has been traced was from the Guangdong province.
Neither of the suspected New York City cases stayed at the Hong Kong hotel, Frieden said. Specimens from both patients have been sent to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for further testing.
Because it is still flu season, many New Yorkers might experience SARS-like symptoms of a fever and respiratory problems. But Frieden said they shouldn't worry unless they have visited Hong Kong, Singapore, Hanoi or the Guangdong province in the last 10 days.
"Then if you have a fever and cough, or other respiratory problems, it's something you should see your doctor about," he said.
Also Thursday, Frieden announced that health officials had been monitoring a doctor and his staff who had treated the Singapore doctor while he was in New York City.
They have shown no symptoms of SARS, a promising sign since it has been six days since they were exposed and the incubation period for the illness is usually three to five days, Frieden said.