The 32-year-old television producer in south China's Guangdong
Province who has been confirmed as a SARS patient has fully
recovered and will be discharged from hospital tomorrow.
Tang Xiaoping, president of the No. 8 People's Hospital of
Guangzhou, the provincial capital, where the man has been treated
since December 24, said: "The patient has had a normal temperature
since December 24."
The man met the three standards set for a patient of SARS
(severe acute respiratory syndrome) to be discharged from the
hospital in China: disappearance of shadows on the lungs, loss of
accompanying symptoms and no fever for over a week.
Meanwhile, only four out of the 81 people who have had contact
with the confirmed patient remain under medical observation. The
rest have been released from quarantine and are said to be well.
And no other suspected or confirmed case have been reported by the
Ministry of Health in the Chinese mainland and in the regions of
Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao yesterday.
However, a Philippine woman returning to Manila from Hong Kong
on December 20 is still under medical observation in a local
hospital there.
She had exhibited some SARS symptoms, including fever and a
cough on December 24, 2003 and then was sent to hospital as a
possible suspected SARS case.
The 42-year-old is now in good condition without fever or cough,
Manila's World Health Organization representative Jean-Marc Olive
told China Daily yesterday.
"We need to wait and see, as well as do further clinical tests,
to confirm whether she is a suspected case or not,'' Olive said. He
added that the final results are expected to come out before
Friday.
Meanwhile, he said that he is fairly certain that sufficient
measures have been taken by Philippine health authorities to
prevent the possible spread of the virus.
As well, authorities in the Philippines have informed their
counterparts in Hong Kong about the information of the woman for
further investigation, Olive noted.
Since the SARS epidemic subsided in June of last year, a total
of three confirmed SARS cases have been reported respectively in
Singapore, Taiwan, and Guangdong.
Meanwhile, Xinhua News Agency reported Wednesday that the
contracted SARS patient had never eaten civet cat, as thousands of
the animals were culled on fears they may carry a form of the virus
that can jump to humans.
The only contact with wildlife the patient could recall was with
a mouse he threw out of a window, the Xinhua news agency said.
Chinese health authorities said a gene sample from the
32-year-old man, surnamed Luo, resembled that of a corona virus
found in civets, a local delicacy.
China has given a Saturday deadline for the slaughter of about
10,000 civets as it tries to avert a SARS outbreak.
"Still unaware of the cause of his catching SARS,
environmentalist Luo said he had never touched or eaten civet cats
in his life and recalled only having thrown a baby mouse out of the
window by hand," Xinhua said.
Luo, 32, complained of a headache and fever on December 16 and
was admitted to an isolation ward at the No. 1 Hospital of
Zhongshan University on December 20.
Initially diagnosed as having pneumonia, he was transferred to
the No. 8 People's Hospital on December 24.
"The disease is not that fearful," Luo said in a telephone
interview with the news agency from the Guangdong capital,
Guangzhou, on Tuesday.
"It was quite a shock to realize that I might have contracted
SARS, when I was sent to the isolation ward," said Luo.
"My appetite is very good now, and I can almost take all the
food provided by the hospital," said Luo.
Luo had been living alone in Guangzhou and had not told his
family about his illness, Xinhua said.
(China Daily January 7, 2004)