3 test negative in new watch on killer SARS

Three Filipinos were examined at the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) in Alabang this week for symptoms of the dreaded Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).

RITM director Dr. Remigio Olveda, however, quickly explained that the three tested negative for pneumonia, the defining criterion for SARS.

Olveda said that the chest X-rays taken from the three patients were negative for pneumonia, indicating that they did not have the dreaded disease.

"It’s not SARS and we could not even consider them as SARS cases because there’s still no SARS. It has not come back," he said in a telephone interview.

One of the patients is a contract worker in the Middle East who made a brief stopover in Singapore recently while the two others went to Beijing, China and Singapore for business.

The three sought consultation at the RITM after they developed fever, one of the initial symptoms of SARS, over a week after returning to the Philippines.

Olveda said that the three could have only heard of the new SARS case in Singapore so they sought consultation after they manifested fever.

"They just want to make sure (it’s not SARS). I think it is better than being complacent. This only means that we have not let our guard down against SARS," he maintained.

Singapore recently reported a new SARS case but health authorities and even the World Health Organization (WHO) refused to consider it as an indication that the disease has returned and described it merely s a "laboratory-contained" case.

The patient is a 27-year-old male research post-doctoral student who worked at a Singapore microbiology laboratory that was culturing SARS virus.

A total of 8,422 people were infected with SARS across the globe since November 2002, with around 900 deaths. WHO declared the world SARS-free last July 5.