A waitress in southern China was declared a suspected SARS case yesterday, and in Hong Kong two members of a TV crew tested negative for the deadly virus, amid fears of an outbreak days ahead of Asia's biggest holiday.
China's Health Ministry said the 20-year-old waitress in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong Province, was suspected of having severe acute respiratory syndrome after having been in hospital for nearly two weeks. A seafood restaurant was besieged by reporters after media reports identified it as the establishment where she worked.
"Forty-eight people who had close contact with her have been isolated and 52 others who had normal contacts have been observed," the provincial health department said.
PHOTO: REUTERS
None displayed SARS symptoms, which include a high fever and dry cough.
A 32-year-old television producer confirmed this week as China's first SARS case since last year and identified only as Luo has recovered and left hospital yesterday.
Three television workers from Hong Kong station TVB had visited an animal market and a hospital where Luo had been treated before they returned to Hong Kong on Dec. 30 with fevers. They were held in hospital isolation wards.
Two have since tested negative for SARS, a Hong Kong government spokesman said. Test results on the third were pending, he added.
The SARS scare is emerging just ahead of the Lunar New Year holidays, when an estimated 1.89 billion journeys are forecast to be made by rail, road, ship and air around China.
SARS killed about 800 people worldwide last year, nearly 350 of them in China.
Luo's case has been linked to a coronavirus also found in wild civet cats, prized as a delicacy in southern China and sold in crowded markets. He denies eating civet and the source of his infection remains a mystery, complicating the larger question of whether the virus has begun to spread again.
"They are still searching. They still have no answers," Beijing-based World Health Organization (WHO) spokesman Roy Wadia said.
Health officials this week banned the sale of civet cats and began a cull to prevent the spread of the disease, which has led to stepped up health screening at airports and border crossings in Asia.
Media reports said the waitress from the central province of Henan had been serving wild game, but provincial health officials declined to comment.
The woman first reported a fever on Dec. 26 and was receiving treatment under quarantine at the Guangzhou No. 8 People's Hospital, one of three city hospitals designated to handle SARS patients.
Shopkeepers near the seafood restaurant reported seeing men in white protective gear moving into the downtown building and of co-workers being held in a nearby shophouse before being taken away by bus.
The operators of the restaurant denied she worked there.
Authorities have stepped up protective measures for medical staff, provincial health officials said. A WHO team was on its way to Guangzhou to investigate.
"We think that there is at this point no significant public health threat," said the WHO's Robert Breiman. "What our interest is in now is to determine what sort of steps can be taken to maintain that low public health risk."
China has given a Saturday deadline for the slaughter of about 10,000 civet cats and has launched a rat and cockroach extermination campaign.
With the return of the northern winter, health officials have been watching closely for a re-emergence of SARS, which experts say is spread by droplets in coughs and sneezes.
Two previous cases, in Singapore and Taiwan, were linked to medical research accidents.
Neighbors in Luo's apartment building at Riverview Gardens, a leafy 10,000-unit haven in a middle-class Guangzhou suburb, seemed unconcerned at his return.
"You read the papers and people say `wah, SARS,' but I say it's just another kind of flu," said Chen Qiuyou, a front desk guard. "So we don't know where it came from. What's the big deal?"
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