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23 soldiers quarantined over SARS scare

A total of 23 military personnel have been quarantined after coming into contact with a soldier whose girlfriend is a nurse at the Taipei Municipal Ho Ping Hospital, which has been isolated after several staff members developed symptoms related to severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).

Those quarantined, mostly conscripts, will be confined to barracks for 10 days, an army spokesman said yesterday, even though the soldier at the center of the incident has not developed any symptoms of the disease.

A spokesman for the army said the soldier, identified only by his surname of Lin, was examined at the 802nd Army Hospital in Kaohsiung and given a clean bill of health.

"The soldier could leave the hospital now. But for safety's sake, we have asked him to stay in the hospital for 10 more days," the spokesman said.

The 23 other service members belong to two different units that Lin stayed with in the past week -- a basic training center in Taichung, where he was assigned up until Tuesday and a communication center in Kaohsiung.

The army said that Lin was given a leave of absence last weekend from Friday to Monday, after he completed basic training and that he traveled to Taipei to see his girlfriend.

On Tuesday, Lin returned to the Taichung center and reported his meeting with his girlfriend to his commanding officers.

Lin then reported to the Kao-hsiung center on April 24 and was immediately sent to the 802nd Army Hospital for a check-up.

Twelve of the soldiers who have been quarantined in Kaohsiung had traveled with Lin to the communications center. The other 11 are those who had frequent contact with Lin while he was in Taichung, including two officers. They are confined to buildings at their Tai-chung base.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of National Defense announced yesterday that a task force has been set up to oversee the prevention and control of possible SARS infections in the armed services. Its members include a three-star deputy chief of the general staff and two two-star generals. The task force will be led by Vice Minister of National Defense Chong-pin Lin (林中斌).

The ministry said it has also activated a top-security biological warfare laboratory belonging to its preventive medicine center. The lab is only supposed to be activated when the country is under biological attack. Its activation might indicate that the military is worried that SARS infections are the result of biological weapons.
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