Hong Kong's public hospitals have set a stricter standard for thedischarge of SARS patients after certain patients who were thoughtto have recovered showed signs of re-infection.

Chairman of the Hospital Authority Leong Che Hung said on localgovernment radio Wednesday that Hong Kong is now following astandard even stricter than the US Center for Disease Control andPrevention in an attempt to contain the spread of the severe acuterespiratory syndrome (SARS).

The US guideline says so long as a patient has had the feverrelieved, and both the X-ray and blood test showed improvementwithin a 48-hour period, he or she can basically be discharged.

"But we feel we need to be stricter than this partly because theliving environment here is different from the United States andpartly because this disease is so new," he said.

Inshort, a patient will need to be hospitalized for five more dayseven after showing such improvement, Leong said, stressing thatthis is now the universal standard across all public hospitalshere.

Such a measure is important in containing the disease, even thoughboth Chief Executive Tung Chee Hwa and a Legislative Councildocument released Wednesday by the Health, Welfare and Food Bureausaid the spread of the disease seems now under control.

"For the past two weeks, the number of additional confirmed casesper day has been on a declining trend. There have also been no newcases in clusters like Amoy Gardens in Kowloon Bay, Koway

Court in Chaiwan or Hing Tung Court in Tung Tau Estate in Wong TaiSin," the document noted.

Speaking at the Legislative Council's Health Panel meetingWednesday, Thomas Yiu, deputy secretary for Health, Welfare andFood of the government, said that as at 1 p.m. on April 28, a totalof 1,557 patients admitted to public hospitals have been confirmedwith SARS. Of them, 350 or 22.5 percent are health care workers ormedical students.

After intensive cleansing, disinfecting and quarantine measure atAmoy Gardens -- a major infection cluster whose residents accountfor 21.1 percent of all confirmed cases -- the situation there hasstabilized with only one case reported in the nine days from April20 to 28, Yiu said.

Sofar, a total of 710 patients, or 45.6 percent, have recovered andbeen discharged from public hospitals, of whom 42 were discharged onApril 28, he said.

There have been 138 fatal cases, most of whom had a history ofchronic diseases, Yiu said, adding regrettably there is a growingnumber of younger deaths whose illness severe and did not respondto treatment.

Atthe moment, all SARS patients in Hong Kong have been or are treatedwith western medication only, as there is a lack of a mechanism togive a combined play to western and Chinese herbal medicine.

But Yiu said among the 709 patients remaining in hospitals as ofApril 28, most of them were showing positive responses to thetreatment protocol.

Atthe meeting, Legislative Councilor Tang Siu Tong has praised theDirector of the Hospital Authority, Ko Wing Man, for his proactiveattitude and diligence in leading public hospital staff here intreating and containing the disease.

"Ithink we need to be fair to Dr. Ko. This is a brand-new disease andwe don't know where it comes from. All we can do is to maintainpersonal health and observe good personal hygiene and environmentalhygiene. ... Many things are still at the trial stage," hesaid.

"Also, the front-line medical staff should be given much praise. Sofar from what I know, no doctor has fled from their duties, orbecause of this (the difficulties involved), demanded moresubsidies or pay from the government. So, I think Dr. Ko should beaccorded high acclaim," Tang said.

(Xinhua News Agency April 30, 2003)