SARS - China, Hong Kong and Taiwan have stepped up screening

Main Category: Flu / Cold / SARS
Article Date: 29 Dec 2003 - 0:00 PDT

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China, Hong Kong and Taiwan have stepped up their screening of travellers following a suspected case of Sars in southern China.

Chinese health officials say a man from Guangdong province with symptoms of Sars is in a stable condition.

He and medical staff who had contact with him have been quarantined.

The World Health Organisation is sending an expert to Beijing to review what it called the confusing results of initial tests on the man.

'So far the tests have been mixed, in testing done so far there have been some positive results and some negative results. They have to do a lot more testing,' Roy Wadia, WHO spokesman in Beijing, said.

Fever screening

It has been suggested that samples be sent abroad for verification.

If the suspected case of Sars is confirmed it will be the first in mainland China since the WHO declared the global outbreak over in July.

The director of the Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Diseases in Guangdong said it was 'not unexpected' that a few Sars cases would continue to be reported.

He said it was unlikely that the Sars virus would die out so soon after its emergence.

The flu-like virus first emerged in Guangdong province last year and went on to infect 8,000 people in nearly 30 countries, killing about 800.

The latest suspected patient, identified by Chinese media as a freelance television worker with the surname Luo, was not believed to have travelled to Hong Kong or elsewhere in China.

Doctors were still trying to determine how he was infected.

Airports and railway stations in China have been setting up special corridors for passengers from Guangdong in order to take travellers' temperatures.

Guangdong officials are also attempting to prevent those with fever from moving around the country.

In Taiwan fever screening will become routine at airports.

'We are afraid this case may not be the only one and may not be the first, which may substantiate a long-time speculation that Sars has become an endemic disease that returns every year this season,' said Shih Wen-yi, deputy director of Taiwan's Centre for Disease Control (CDC).

Passengers arriving in Hong Kong from Guangdong were reported to be having their temperatures taken with ear thermometers.

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