An entire company at an army unit in Tainan was quarantined yesterday after one of its soldiers displayed symptoms of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, the army said.
Initial medical checks did not reveal whether the soldier has the virus, however, in a precautionary measure all unit personnel, some 100 service members, will be isolated for 10 days.
It took the number of service members quarantined because of SARS to above 120.
On Friday, army officials said that 23 soldiers had been quarantined after having contact with a soldier whose girlfriend is a nurse at Taipei Municipal Hoping Hospital, which was isolated af-ter staff members developed symptoms of SARS.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of National Defense yesterday offered the use of another two military sites to house civilians with suspected SARS -- the Sungshan Military Hospital in Taipei, formerly called the Air Force General Hospital, and a newly built army base in Taoyuan.
Ministry spokesman Major General Huang Sui-sheng (
"So far, there have been no confirmed cases of SARS infections in the military. We are now taking all sorts of preventive measures in cooperation with medical authorities," Huang said.
"A task force activated for the occasion is behind the efforts. It has incorporated resources from different branches of the military ranging from medical, public relations, combat operations and logistics," he said.
"The biological-warfare laboratory of the preventive-medicine center has also been working in the fight against SARS. It is responsible for assisting medical authorities in the determination of SARS infections," he said.
A defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said although there has been no cases of SARS infections in the armed services so far, military leaders are very concerned about a case developing. Commanding officers at all levels have canceled holiday plans to be ready for action.
"The military has been immune so far to SARS infections possibly because most of the bases are isolated from the public and seldom have visitors from outside, let alone those from foreign countries," the official said.
"A lot of open space might be another contributing factor. Although most of the soldiers do not have large living spaces to themselves, they do have very large open spaces outside their living quarters," he said.
"Most of the military bases do not use air conditioners or central air-conditioning systems. We keep the air inside a building fresh by keeping the windows open," he said.
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