CTCI employees end quarantine

One hundred and forty CTCI Corp-oration employees who are colleagues of six reported SARS cases ended their 13-day domestic quarantine and returned to work yesterday.

The corporation said it reported the six cases, all of whom had been on a business trip to China in March, to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and sent them to the National Taiwan University Hospital for examinations on March 26.

Jenny Wei (魏貞利), manager of the corporation's administrative department, said in a press conference that four of the six cases are still in the hospital and that one of them will be discharged in a few days' time.

The corporation said it asked the six patients 140 colleagues to stay at home from March 26 to April 4. As April 5 was a national holiday and the following two days were a weekend, the 140 people had been under domestic quarantine for 13 days.

"The 13-day domestic quarantine for the employees is longer than the incubation period of SARS, which lasts from three to 10 days," said Judson Yen (嚴基棟), the corporation's spokesman.

Since March 26, the corporation has carried out two large-scale decontaminations on its building and required its employees wear face masks to work until April 4, Yen said.

The corporation also appealed to the public not to discriminate against its employees simply because several SARS cases appeared in the company.

According to the corporation, its quarantined employees and their relatives felt "wronged" and "unfairly treated" by their neighbors. "Even the employees' children's education has been affected," the corporation said.

Wei said children of the company's quarantined employees were rejected by their classmates.

"Although the children's teachers did not discriminate against them, parents of the children's classmates kept demanding that the schools and teachers impose protective measures to ensure their own children would not be infected," Wei said.

The corporation's employees' children felt that their self-confidence had been damaged because of their classmates' parents' request, said Wei.

All 140 employees were unwilling to be interviewed yesterday. "They are afraid their children will be hurt again," Wei said.

Although four of the corporation's employees are still in the hospitals because of the infection, Yen said the corporation would not stop deploying employees to China on business trips.

"Many SARS cases got infected in hospitals, but hospitals will not close because there have been cases," said Yen, adding that he felt the country has "overreacted" to the disease.

Nevertheless, Yen said the corporation has taken very cautious measures to protect its employees from infection. "For example, we give every employee sent to China a long list of tips about how to avoid infection," Yen said.

Yen said the corporation also leaves it up to its employees to decide whether they want to take business trips to China. "They can decide not to go. But so far our employees have been very willing to cooperate with the corporation," Yen said.

Chen Tzay-jinn (陳再晉), director-general of the CDC, attended the corporation's press conference and thanked the company for its cooperation with the government in curbing the spread of the disease.

"The outbreak is not only a health matter. It is deeply related to our economy and even affects the quarantined people's human rights," Chen said.