DOH says girl contracted SARS

The Department of Health (DOH) reported yesterday a four-year-old girl might have been infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).

Lee Lung-teng (李龍騰), deputy director-general of the DOH, said the girl was the first child listed as a "probable" SARS case.

As no probable SARS cases had been reported from last Thursday to Monday, the DOH said on Monday it expected Taiwan could be removed from the World Health Organization's list of SARS-affected areas shortly.

However, the appearance of four more probable cases of SARS yesterday has dashed the expectation. The girl was one of four new probable cases, Lee said.

Lee said the girl's father was also a probable SARS case. "The girl's father was discharged from the hospital on March 31. The girl began to experience a fever after her father returned home," Lee said.

On April 3, the girl had high fever of 38.6?C. Her doctor administered antibiotics and the medication worked well. She was discharged from the hospital last Friday, Lee said.

Lee said although the girl has recovered from her illness, the specialist team of the Center for Disease Control (CDC) tackling SARS still decided to list her as a probable case.

The team decided to list the child as a probable SARS case for three reasons. "First, she has had close contact with another SARS case [her father]. Second, she had high fever and she had pneumonia symptoms," Lee said.

Nevertheless, Huang Fu-yuan (黃富源), vice superintendent of Mackay Memorial Hospital and an infectious-diseases expert, called for the public not to panic because a probable child-SARS case had appeared.

"The CDC had been closely observing the child even before she fell ill because she was a family member of a probable SARS case," Huang said.

Huang noted in order to efficiently contain the spread of SARS, Taiwan has imposed stricter isolation measures than required by the WHO.

The WHO recommends that all SARS cases should be put under domestic quarantine for seven days after they are discharged from hospitals because the cases might still continue to spread the disease after their recovery.

"The CDC asked all probable SARS cases discharged from hospitals to stay under home quarantine for 14 days, twice the duration demanded by the WHO," Huang said.

According to the CDC, 158 possible SARS cases have been reported as of yesterday afternoon, of which 27 are probable cases and 42 suspected cases. Seventy-nine cases have been ruled out as SARS and 10 cases are still to be verified, the CDC said.