Posted on 05/08/2003 7:30:29 AM PDT by Dog Gone
TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan said on Thursday the deadly SARS virus has probably spread into the community and the next five days will be crucial in containing the flu-like disease.
The Department of Health reported another 22 probable and suspected cases of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), taking Taiwan's infections to 360, the third highest in the world after China and Hong Kong. The death toll rose to 14 from 13.
'I think the future five days is a so-called critical period,' Chen Chien-jen, chairman of the health department's SARS advisory committee, told Reuters Television in an interview.
'If we can see a decline in reported cases and a decline in probable cases, then we can be sure that this generation of hospital infections has subsided and we will be more optimistic about the epidemic in Taiwan.'
Lee Ming-liang, who leads the cabinet's SARS committee, told a news conference Taiwan could be considered as having transmissions among the community because at least six of its cases had no known history of direct contact with SARS patients.
His comments came just a day after the cabinet said there was no evidence of community infections in Taiwan and it was hopeful the outbreak could be under control by the end of May.
The Taipei American School, which has 2,100 students from kindergarten to high school, said late on Wednesday it will be closed for the rest of the school year after a teacher and student were classified as suspected SARS cases.
Both the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have sent experts to the island after an outbreak at the Taipei Municipal Ho Ping Hospital caused the number of infections to triple in the last two weeks.
The tardy detection of infections at a second Taipei hospital also fueled worries SARS could have slipped through hospital doors and into the general population.
The WHO, on its first trip to non-member Taiwan in 30 years, is urging the island to try harder to track the spread of SARS, Chen said. He met with the WHO doctors in Taipei on Wednesday.
Looks like its out in Taiwan, but still in very low numbers.
They might still be able to contain it if they pull out all the stops. Given the continued traffic from China, that will be very difficult.
The CDC sez
Taiwan is 125.
Someone is fibbing...
(Might?! In fact, I did.)
They're the most recent, May 7th.
So, either Reuters
or the CDC
is off by 50%.
You'd think at this stage
all the big players
would be reading the same book
for important stats...
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