A US citizen became Shanghai's seventh confirmed case of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, yesterday.
The American-Chinese, identified only by his surname Zheng, was hospitalized on April 7 for flu-like symptoms. The man, who was listed as a suspected case for weeks in the city, is currently undergoing treatment at Shanghai Pulmonary Disease Hospital.
The man was once hospitalized in Hong Kong as a suspected SARS patient and dismissed later. He came to Shanghai from Hong Kong on April 5 and showed symptoms again next day. He was confirmed as a probable SARS patient yesterday after local doctors used a newly-imported testing equipment for his diagnosis.
A total of 22 people who had contact with him in Shanghai have all been released from isolation after undergoing medical observation.
As of noon yesterday, three new suspected cases were reported in Shanghai and four cases were eliminated, bringing the total suspected patients to 10, according to the city government's daily update.
"Shanghai is a city with big moving population," said Peng Jing, vice director of the Shanghai Health Bureau.
"In late April and early May, many people entered the city from regions hard-hit by SARS," she added.
"Considering the latent period of 10 to 14 days, we will keep our vigilance high to prevent and control the spread of the disease," she said.
Jiang Qingwu, a member of Shanghai's SARS expert consulting group, said a region is considered hard-hit when the virus spreads to the third or fourth layer of people.
"In Shanghai, so far, the epidemic is basically on 'imported cases,'" Jiang said.
Except for the man who died on Thursday, the city's first SARS death who got the virus from his daughter, Shanghai's first SARS case, all the other six cases are patients who were infected in either southern or northern China.
Currently in the city, 94 people who have close contact with the two infected couples from northern China, in addition to 181 people with indirect contacts, are under quarantine. Their quarantine will expire in five or six days. So far, no one has reported illness.
(eastday.com May 10, 2003)
