SARS Terror Diffuses Again

After the SARS outbreak in China, other suspicious cases of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in Philippines and Malaysia have followed, reviving the SARS terror in the Asian countries.

The Chinese sanitation authorities officially confirmed that the suspicious SARS patient found in December 2003 in the Guangdong province of China was indeed infected with the virus.

The respiratory disease research center in Guangzhou remarked in a press conference held in Hong Kong, “The television journalist, 32, who was suspected of catching SARS, has indeed been infected with the SARS virus.”

In the last year, after 20 to 30 days since the first two SARS patients were discovered, the disease spread out to the other regions.

“Between the two Corona viruses detected on the blood samples from this journalist and the lesser oriental civets, there is similarity. It shows the fact that another mutant of the Corona virus has been transmitted from the wild animals to human beings again in the recent two to three months,” addressed the research team of Hong Kong University.

According to their confirmation, the administration of Guangdong province has killed thousands of oriental civets, closing down the wild animal market.

The news agencies of Hong Kong, have reported that another SARS suspicion case was found, but the sanitation authorities in Guangdong denied that the problematic patient shows a mere fever symptom caused by a pneumonia, and stated that there is no direct connection with the SARS virus.

On the other hand, the sanitation authorities in Philippines has quarantined a certain woman, 41, who has shown symptoms of fever after working as a housekeeper in Hong Kong and returned home in December 2003. The husband of this woman was also put away in the same hospital, and the two children were isolated in their house.

In Malaysia, when a certain woman, 31, who had traveled to Guangdong province and returned on January 3, suffered from a high fever, the sanitation authorities hospitalized her to check whether or not she had caught the disease.

Jin Lee leej@donga.com