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SARS cases beginning to emerge in Kaohsiung City

Kaohsiung City was on high alert for severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) yesterday when a major medical center was shut down after a staff member was suspected of catching the disease.

Local health officials, however, expressed their concern over the slow response by the city's branch of the Bureau of National Health Insurance, where a medical technician was diagnosed as a suspected SARS case

According to Joe Lin (林盟喬), a health official, the 65-year-old medical technician had had a cough for about a week. But it wasn't until Thursday that the patient visited the Kaohsiung Veterans General Hospital with a fever exceeding 40℃.

Despite the diagnosis, the center opened as usual yesterday morning. In the afternoon, the technician's colleagues were told to go home and stay there, and the center was closed.

"We've kept the family members the patient has been in contact with, which is just his son, quarantined at home," Lin said.

Lin said that the technician had not visited any countries where SARS was prevalent.

His work involved examining blood, urine and feces samples from patients at the medical center, Lin said, and this could have been how he was infected.

Officials at the medical center defended their response to the possible SARS outbreak there.

"According to the Department of Health's regulations, a center should be shut down immediately if there has been confirmation of a `probable' SARS case, not just a suspected case," said Wu Chin-hsiun (吳錦勳), the technician's manager.

Han Ming-jung (韓明榮), director of the city's health department, said yesterday that the sick technician's colleagues and their families would be quarantined, without saying for how long.

A warehouse next to the health department building will be turned into a special SARS clinic for those who are suspected of having the disease, Han said.
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