- BEIJING (AFP) -- China reported
five new suspect SARS cases have been isolated with fever and samples from
another woman suspected to have had SARS were being tested to confirm whether
or not she died from the disease.
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- In a potentially embarrassing turn of events, it was
also announced that China's top laboratory on the SARS epidemic has been
shut down due to the widespread belief that the latest outbreak started
at the Beijing-based Institute of Virology.
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- "The Ministry of Health as of yesterday (Saturday)
afternoon instructed the Beijing city government to take measures to isolate
and close down the concerned laboratory," a statement issued by the
municipal government said.
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- So far, two people have been confirmed as having come
down with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, two are suspected to have
the disease while five out of 13 who have had close contact with the patients
have developed SARS-like fevers, it said.
-
- China's Ministry of Health also Sunday reported that
only four new suspected SARS cases were detected in the 24 hour period
from 10:00 am April 24, meaning that one of the suspected cases reported
by the Beijing government is not officially deemed a suspect case.
-
- Furthermore one suspect patient has died, with samples
arriving at a secondary lab in Beijing early Sunday expected to confirm
whether or not the 53-year old woman died from SARS.
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- The woman was the mother of a post graduate student named
Song who worked at the Institute of Virology, China's top SARS lab, in
late March and who was hospitalized with the respiratory disease on March
29.
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- Following the closure the lab, the World Health Organization
announced that it was setting up a joint team to investigate whether internationally
accepted bio-safety guidelines were compromised.
-
- "A team of two or three experts will be in Beijing
to help China get to the bottom of whether or not this lab was responsible
for the spread of SARS in China," said WHO's Beijing-based spokesman
Bob Dietz.
-
- "If this is the case there might have been serious
breaches of internationally accepted bio-safety guidelines," he told
AFP.
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- The 26-year old Song worked in the laboratory from March
7 to 22, returning by train to her hometown in central Anhui province where
she became feverish on March 25.
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- She further endangered infecting other passengers by
returning to Beijing by rail where she was hospitalized on March 29.
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- Her mother, who cared for her in Anhui, became sick on
April 8 and died on April 19.
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- Health authorities kept the outbreak under wraps until
Friday.
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- The other confirmed case, Beijing nurse Li Na, 20, worked
in the respiratory department of Jiangong hospital, where Song had been
briefly hospitalized.
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- Another suspected SARS case announced on Saturday had
ties to the Beijing Center for Disease Control. The patient, a 31-year-old
researcher surnamed Yang, had worked at the center's lab.
-
- Five others, including Li's mother, father and aunt have
come down with SARS-like fevers, the Beijing government said.
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- In Beijing, up to 337 people who had close contact with
the patients are under quarantine and are being monitored for fevers and
coughing, the early symptoms of SARS.
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- In central China's Anhui, more than 100 people were under
observation.
-
- All major Beijing papers Sunday carried reports about
the SARS cases but there were few signs of panic in the city of 13 million.
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- During last year's crisis the streets were first filled
with people wearing masks to avoid coming into contact with the virus,
and then were deserted.
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- SARS killed nearly 800 people, infecting more than 8,000
worldwide, with China being the worst affected country. Beijing had the
most number of cases of any city in the world.
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