The National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH) yesterday said one of its doctors who had tended to patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) might have been infected with the disease.
The doctor is the first suspected SARS case among hospital staff.
The hospital said it has reported the case to the Center for Disease Control (CDC).
Lin Ho-hsiung (林鶴雄), spokesman for the hospital, said the doctor, who has fever higher than 38?C, has been sent to an isolation ward.
The hospital also confirmed the 5-year-old son of a CTCI Corp employee, who was listed by the CDC as a "probable" case of SARS, has symptoms such as coughing, fever and slightly inflamed lungs.
According to the hospital, the employee returned from China on March 21 and spent five days with his wife and child before being sent to Taipei's Tri-Service General Hospital on Wednesday.
The hospital said it has not reported the boy's case to the CDC because it is still difficult to determine whether the boy might have been infected with SARS.
The boy's mother did not have any SARS symptoms but also stayed in the hospital's isolation ward, according to the hospital.
In addition, a Singaporean soldier on a training assignment to a Hsinchu military base has been admitted to the Tri-Service General Hospital with what is suspected to be symptoms of SARS.
Hsinchu City's Health Bureau said the soldier, who arrived at Taiwan on March 20, experienced a fever, coughing and vomiting. The bureau reported his case to the CDC on Wednesday.
However, the Tri-Service General Hospital said yesterday that after an examination of the soldier, it is not counting him as a SARS case. However, he remains under close observation, the hospital said.
Department of Health deputy administrator Lee Lung-teng (
According to the World Health Organization's (WHO) definition of the syndrome, 10 of the patients are "probable cases" and nine "suspect cases," the department said.
Lee said 16 cases still have to be verified and that 13 cases have been found not to be SARS related.
Meanwhile, lawmakers yesterday initiated a proposal to be sent to the legislature demanding that it send letters to parliaments around the world to solicit support for Taiwan's entrance into the WHO.
More than 140 legislators have signed up to back the proposal.
"The proposal is one of the few proposals ever that have garnered strong support from lawmakers from all parties," DPP Legislator Lai Chin-lin (賴勁麟), one of the
initiators of the proposal, told a press conference yesterday.
Lai, also the chairman of the legislature's Sanitation, Environmental and Social Welfare Committee, said Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) has agreed to place the proposal on the legislative agenda next week at the earliest.
The proposal will petition other parliaments to send the letters to their countries' health agencies so that those agencies may also "urge the WHO to respect Taiwanese people and accept Taiwan's application to enter the organization."
"The WHO has excluded Taiwan because it does not wish to offend the People's Republic of China, yet the PRC has not even acted responsibly in this global health crisis," DPP Legislator Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) said in a press release.
"Taiwan has taken pro-active steps to contain SARS and on March 18 identified a paramyxovirus as a possible cause of the disease," Hsiao said.
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