Health and immigration officials from Singapore and Malaysia met in Kuala Lumpur Wednesday and agreed to set a framework for cooperation in their fight against the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).
At a press conference Wednesday evening, Moses Lee, permanent secretary of Singapore's Ministry of Health and co-head of Singapore's delegation to the Kuala Lumpur meeting, said that the officials from both sides exchanged information on the current SARS situation in the two countries. They discussed and agreed on the need for the two countries to exchange medical information on SARS in a comprehensive, accurate and timely manner.
Lee also said that the officials agreed to form a separate working group to discuss the SARS issue in greater details so as to set up a framework for cooperation in different areas. They include epidemiology and clinical features, public health measures, infection control practices, contact tracing and quarantine measures, cases on board vessels and aircraft, citizens hospitalized with SARS, and status updates of SARS cases.
The officials also discussed areas of cooperation at the land checkpoints to contain the spread of SARS virus and agreed to hold the next group meeting in Johor Bahru, Malaysia, next week to continue their discussion.
On every day, there are some 50,000 people traveling across the Singapore-Johor causeway which is the key land link between the two neighbors.
Also at the press conference, Singapore Minister for Health LimHng Kiang said that his government has installed at the airport a thermal scanner system which is a walk-through heat detector to check if arriving air travelers have fever and to spot travelers with fever at airport.
Singapore also reported a new death from SARS and five additional SARS cases Wednesday.
The diseased is the mother of a doctor who contracted SARS while looking after a SARS patient.
The five new cases involve two staff members of the National Cancer Center where it was the first time that SARS cases emerged, an in-patient at the Singapore General Hospital's 57 and 58 wards where cluster of infection with SARS occurred earlier, the son of a SARS patient and a doctor who looked after two patients prior to their diagnosis of SARS.
The Singapore health minister pointed out that up to now most of the SARS transmission took place in hospitals and he will give priority to curbing SARS spread in hospital facilities.
The new patients raised the total number of SARS patients in Singapore to 167, of whom 15 have died, 61 remain hospitalized and 91 have been discharged from hospital.
(Xinhua News Agency April 17, 2003)
