- Health officials in China's southern Guangdong province,
where SARS first emerged, now believe that hundreds of cases were misdiagnosed,
state press reported.
-
- More than 200 flu or pneumonia patients were wrongly
diagnosed with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, the Shanghai Morning
Post said, citing Wang Ming, vice-director of the Guangzhou Disease Prevention
and Control Center.
-
- SARS was first detected late last year in Guangdong,
which was the second most heavily hit area in the country after Beijing
and reported a total of 1,274 cases.
-
- But according to Wang, after comparative blood tests
the actual number of SARS cases should be 1,062, among which 480 cases
were patients who had contracted the disease from an original source.
-
- Health officials from Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong
province, were not immediately available for comment.
-
- However, World Health Organisation spokesman Bob Dietz
said that a restropective look via new testing methods would likely reveal
lower SARS figures than first reported.
-
- "The trouble is there was no test for SARS at the
time. It could only be identified by physical descriptions. We are wondering
that in the heat of the situation, of isolation and quarantining, whether
all those cases were actually SARS," Dietz said.
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- "Something like this does not surprise us."
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- The pneumonia-like disease claimed 349 lives out of 5,327
cases in China, the worst-affected country. It exploded across the world
to infect a global total of 8,098 people, leaving more than 800 dead.
-
- As winter approaches in China and temperatures slide,
making conditions ideal for SARS to spread, warnings of a renewed outbreak
have multiplied, with some Chinese health officials saying the virus will
"definitely" return.
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