sars (Page 6)

There are fewer cases of SARS in the U.S. than was previously thought. The number of SARS cases dropped from 208 to 35, thanks to new techniques for identifying SARS. CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding says, “I think we did cast a very wide net early on?We have a test available now and that is going to help us sort out the cases truly related to coronavirus. We do not want to exaggerate the scope of the problem here.” And despite a raging epidemic of SARS in Toronto, Ontario, British Columbia has managed to stay relatively SARS-free.

Gerberding says, “It may very well be that our isolation system is contributing to that but it also may be just luck?that we haven’t had people who are highly infectious.”
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Nine residents of another Hong Kong apartment building have come down with SARS, meaning that a second apartment building may be quarantined, with no one allowed to enter or leave. Doctors think the SARS epidemic in Koway Court was started by a resident who sold fast-food near the Amoy Gardens housing estate, where more than 320 people have come down with the disease. A SARS patient with diarrhea infected the other people in Amoy Gardens due to a leaking sewage pipe, but there is no evidence of similar problems at Koway Court. Rats and cockroaches stepped in the sewage and spread it between apartments.
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A group of SARS patients in Hong Kong have unusual symptoms that make doctors think the virus may be mutating and becoming more severe. The 300 patients at the quarantined Amoy Gardens apartment building there have more serious cases of SARS than most other patients. Also, SARS seems to be targeting younger, healthier people, unlike the early cases, which mostly killed the aged or infirm. And it’s been confirmed that infants can catch SARS in the womb from their mothers.
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An enzyme test that detects lung damage could help determine which patients are more likely to die from SARS, which has already killed 103 people worldwide. Dr. Joseph Sung of Hong Kong’s Prince of Wales Hospital is trying to figure out why some patients die from SARS, while most survive. This is important to know, since health officials have now admitted the disease is so widespread that it can’t be contained in Asia. With so much world travel, this means it’s here to stay in the rest of the world, as well.
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