China confines third Sars case

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China confines third Sars case


There are fears of a new outbreak
China's official media has acknowledged a third suspected case of the deadly flu-like Sars virus in the southern province of Guangdong.
Newspapers said a 35-year-old man had been isolated in hospital for medical observation.

Earlier this month, a man in the city of Guangzhou caught the virus, but he has since recovered.

That case was the first in China since the global outbreak last year that infected thousands and killed 800.

  It's not clear to us how they [Guangdong] are arriving at a decision to identify a suspected case

Bob Dietz
WHO spokesman  

Investigators from the World Health Organization have been examining ventilation and sewage systems in the man's building to try to find the origin of his virus.

A 20-year-old waitress is also suspected of having the infection, and is in hospital.

The authorities in Guangdong had ordered the culling of all animals that were suspected of carrying the Sars virus by 10 January.

Thousands of civet cats have been killed, mostly by drowning, electrocution and incineration.

The cull was extended to badgers, raccoon dogs and other animals served as local delicacies.

Definition 'unclear'

Dr Thomas Tsang, a spokesman for the Hong Kong Department of Health, said his agency received word of the latest suspected case from officials in Guangdong province, which borders Hong Kong.


There is no proof that civet cats are a source of infection

He said the new patient did not work in a job that involved handling wild animals.

WHO spokesman in Beijing Bob Dietz said: "There's always been a problem with case definition with Sars - actually identifying a case."

He added: "It's not clear to us how they [the Guangdong authorities] are arriving at a decision to identify a suspected case."

The WHO delegation in Guangdong has promised to leave no stone unturned in its investigation.

It has warned there could be a number of suspected Sars cases in the coming months because of its resemblance to other winter illnesses.

The Sars virus spread from China last year and caused a global health crisis in which about 8,000 people were infected.

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http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/01/11/sars.wrap/index.html

Monday, January 12, 2004 Posted: 3:00 AM EST (0800 GMT)

HONG KONG, China -- China has confirmed a 35-year-old male patient in the southern province of Guangdong as a suspected SARS case -- its third since the world was declared SARS free in July.

The man is in stable condition in a hospital in the provincial capital of Guangzhou, where two other SARS cases, one of them confirmed, have been treated, Xinhua reported on Monday.

There had been some confusion over the status of the man, with Chinese officials earlier preferring to say only that the patient was in isolation and not categorized as a "suspected" case.

The World Health Organization says it expects many patients to present with SARS- like symptoms as winter illnesses show similar traits to the SARS virus, such as fever and coughs.

Last Monday, China confirmed its first SARS case since a world outbreak was declared over in July.

The man was a 32-year-old television producer named Luo, who has since recovered and been discharged from hospital.

It is not clear how he got SARS as he told authorities he had no contact with wild animals.

Meanwhile investigators have searched a restaurant in Guangdong where a 20-year-old waitress worked, after she was listed as a suspected SARS case last week.

Extermination
Evidence of a possible link between SARS and animals from wildlife markets popular in the region has prompted Guangdong authorities into a mass culling.

Thousands of civets -- considered a local delicacy -- have been slaughtered after researchers named the animal as the possible source of the virus before it jumped to humans.

Guangdong is widely accepted as the place SARS first emerged to such devastating effect in November 2002. It went on to infect more than 8,000 people in nearly 30 countries, killing about 800 of them.

"Basically, most of the civet cats in Guangdong have been slaughtered," one official at the Guangzhou Anti-SARS Office told The Associated Press on Sunday.

Cleaners were also sweeping streets and targeting potential disease spreaders such as rats, cockroaches, flies and mosquitoes.

The Guangzhou-based newspaper Yangcheng Evening News said on its Web site Sunday that a three-day campaign on eliminating rats was drawing more than 10,000 people.

It said more than 10 tonnes of grain had been laced with poison and deployed in "millions of places" to kill rats.

"Exercise caution in dealing with rat carcasses," it said, quoting authorities.

Public health experts have said they think SARS can be contained as long as a good surveillance and isolation system is in place.

"We feel that this is a disease where we may see small numbers of cases," said Julie Hall, a World Health Organization expert in Beijing.

"We may even see very small numbers of clusters, but we should not see the large outbreaks that we saw before if the system is strong enough to be able to do that early detection."