Posted on 12/20/2003 12:05:19 PM PST by blam
Singapore lifts SARS quarantine orders
December 20 2003 at 11:00AM
By Jonathan Landreth
Singapore - Singapore sounded the all-clear after its latest Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) scare on Saturday, lifting mandatory home quarantine orders on 75 people who came into contact with a visitor from Taiwan with the deadly flu-like virus.
The health ministry in the Southeast Asian city-state, the only other country to report a case since an outbreak that killed hundreds of people worldwide was pronounced over in July, said six people who fell ill did not have SARS.
In Taiwan, initial findings showed that the military scientist diagnosed with SARS was likely to have contracted the virus on December 6, a day before he left for Singapore, as he tried to disinfect a trash bag in his lab.
Singapore's health ministry said 75 people who came into contact with the scientist during his four-day visit to the city-state had been released from 10 days home quarantine overnight.
"Everyone who was on home quarantine in line with the 10-day virus incubation period was released from quarantine at midnight and can go back to normal activities immediately," a spokesperson said.
To date, no one has development a vaccine against SARS, or a cure.
The Taiwan case is only the second since the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared in July that the last outbreak of the disease was over - and both have been traced to laboratories.
A 27-year-old Singaporean medical student who tested positive for the potentially lethal disease after a laboratory accident in September 9 has since recovered.
Singapore was the first city to begin mass quarantines in the last SARS outbreak, isolating 8 000 people, monitoring some with cameras, and threatening jail time and fines if they left home.
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