Wed, Jun 04, 2003 page1

• Researchers develop new test for SARS

  DEADLY DISEASE With the number of new cases falling every day, a team from the nation's leading hospital has found a new way of detecting the virus

  • By Debby Wu / STAFF REPORTER
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  The number of SARS cases in the country fell yesterday after six cases were reclassified, and National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH) said it had developed a faster way of detecting antibodies to the disease.

  With one new probable SARS case, the total stood at 679 yesterday, from 684 the day before. The number of deaths remained unchanged at 81.

  The Department of Health(DOH) said it was significant for the country's bid to get the World Health Organization to lift its travel advisory on Taiwan that yesterday was the sixth day in a row there had been fewer that five new SARS cases.

  The DOH yesterday also unveiled a new method of detecting SARS antibodies, called immunochromatography (ICT).

  "With ICT, now it is much quicker and simpler to test whether a patient is infected with SARS," said Su Yi-jen (蘇益仁), director of the Center for Disease Control.

  "It takes only 30 minutes to test whether a patient has the coronavirus," added Su.

  Chen Pei-jer (陳培哲), director of the Hepatitis Research Center at NTUH, said that ICT can detect 16 percent of those of have had SARS for between seven and eight days. For those who have had the disease for 14 days, the detection rate rises to between 50 percent and 60 percent, Chen said.

  While less than 100 percent accurate, the new test detects SARS antibodies better than existing methods, Chen said.

  Meanwhile, the DOH and National Taiwan University Medical School said yesterday that the source of the SARS outbreak at Taipei Municipal Hoping Hospital did not originate from the Amoy Gardens Complex in Hong Kong.

  It was thought that a woman named Tsao, who brought the disease to Hoping Hospital, contracted the disease from an Amoy resident surnamed Tseng while on a train to Taichung.

  Tseng and the brother he was visiting in Taichung both died of the disease.

  The medical school studied the virus' gene sequence and found that the specimen from Hoping Hospital was different from the one found at the Hong Kong apartment complex, which was linked to earlier cases in Taiwan.

  "So far we still cannot nail down the source of the virus at Hoping," Chen said.

  He said that Tseng, a Taiwanese businessman based in China called Chin who returned to Taiwan in March and NTUH doctor Tsai Tzu-Hsiu (蔡子修) had contracted the virus from a similar source. These cases were the first to be discovered in the country.

  Cases found at Hoping Hospital, Jen Chi Hospital and a noodle vendor from Hsinchuang who was thought to have spread the disease at Mackay Hospital had a different source, Chen said.

  The researchers said they didn't know whether knowledge of the gene sequence would help with treatment of the disease.

  "We still don't know whether the sequences will tell us about how serious the disease is or whether the symptoms for every patient are the same, but we surely hope that this can help us to learn more about the epidemic and find better cures," said Yang Pan-chyr (楊泮池), director of the Department of Internal Medicine at NTUH.

  Also see story:

  Taiwanese tourists face more travel restrictions
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