Wed, Apr 16, 2003 page1

• DOH says girl contracted SARS

  CASE SPIKE The young girl has already recovered but is included in the health department's daily update of the nation's reported `probable' atypical pneumonia cases

  • By Melody Chen / STAFF REPORTER
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  The Department of Health (DOH) reported yesterday a four-year-old girl might have been infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). \nLee Lung-teng (李龍騰), deputy director-general of the DOH, said the girl was the first child listed as a "probable" SARS case. \nAs no probable SARS cases had been reported from last Thursday to Monday, the DOH said on Monday it expected Taiwan could be removed from the World Health Organization's list of SARS-affected areas shortly. \nHowever, the appearance of four more probable cases of SARS yesterday has dashed the expectation. The girl was one of four new probable cases, Lee said. \nLee said the girl's father was also a probable SARS case. "The girl's father was discharged from the hospital on March 31. The girl began to experience a fever after her father returned home," Lee said. \nOn April 3, the girl had high fever of 38.6?C. Her doctor administered antibiotics and the medication worked well. She was discharged from the hospital last Friday, Lee said. \nLee said although the girl has recovered from her illness, the specialist team of the Center for Disease Control (CDC) tackling SARS still decided to list her as a probable case. \nThe team decided to list the child as a probable SARS case for three reasons. "First, she has had close contact with another SARS case [her father]. Second, she had high fever and she had pneumonia symptoms," Lee said. \nNevertheless, Huang Fu-yuan (黃富源), vice superintendent of Mackay Memorial Hospital and an infectious-diseases expert, called for the public not to panic because a probable child-SARS case had appeared. \n"The CDC had been closely observing the child even before she fell ill because she was a family member of a probable SARS case," Huang said. \nHuang noted in order to efficiently contain the spread of SARS, Taiwan has imposed stricter isolation measures than required by the WHO. \nThe WHO recommends that all SARS cases should be put under domestic quarantine for seven days after they are discharged from hospitals because the cases might still continue to spread the disease after their recovery. \n"The CDC asked all probable SARS cases discharged from hospitals to stay under home quarantine for 14 days, twice the duration demanded by the WHO," Huang said. \nAccording to the CDC, 158 possible SARS cases have been reported as of yesterday afternoon, of which 27 are probable cases and 42 suspected cases. Seventy-nine cases have been ruled out as SARS and 10 cases are still to be verified, the CDC said.

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