DOH monitoring couple as possible SARS cases

Health authorities have isolated a woman and her husband on suspicion she contracted SARS while working as a maid in Hong Kong, but health officials said on Monday it was too early to confirm she had the deadly virus.

The 41-year-old woman identified by the initials "MD" was being treated at the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) in Muntinlupa City for pneumonia, while her husband had a fever. The doctor who initially treated her was isolated as a precautionary measure but showed no symptoms.

The couple’s two children are now under quarantine at their home in Luisiana, Laguna though they have not developed any SARS symptoms.

"We are waiting for a test to confirm if she has SARS," said Dennis Magat, an official of the Department of Health (DOH).

"We have to know if this pneumonia comes from SARS," said Dr. Luningning Villa, a spokeswoman for the DOH. "Now she is still a suspected SARS case, not a probable case yet."

The results of tests on the woman for the flu-like virus that causes Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome will not be known at least until Tuesday, Villa said.

DOH official Dr. Yolanda Oliveros said the results of x-rays and blood tests on the woman are expected later Monday.

MD was considered a potential SARS case because of the x-ray findings of pneumonia and her history of travel from Hong Kong, which was hard-hit last year by an outbreak of the virus that swept out of southern China.

At a press conference, Health Secretary Manuel Dayrit said "MD" had developed a cough and fever that prompted her to seek medical treatment.

She was given antibiotics, Dayrit said, but her condition did not improve and she sought a second opinion from another doctor when she experienced "rapid breathing" on Dec. 29. When her symptoms persisted, "MD" was brought to the provincial hospital of Laguna, where she was placed in the intensive care unit.

MD’s x-ray results showed she had "bileteral pneumonia," another definition for SARS. Her husband, on the other hand, was found to have an upper respiratory tract infection. The couple was moved to RITM in Muntinlupa City, where they will be isolated until Jan. 14.

Officials were tracing the contact history of the woman, who arrived in her hometown from Hong Kong on Dec. 20.

Dayrit said he has ordered that a panel of SARS experts that reviewed the suspected SARS cases in the country last year to convene and evaluate the conditions of MD and her spouse.

World Health Organization (WHO) spokesman Peter Cordingley, at the agency’s Asian regional headquarters in Manila, said "we’re treating this still as a suspected case" until testing proves otherwise.

WHO country representative Dr. Jean Marc Olive said it is unlikely that MD and her husband have SARS. "We will investigate the case and see it it’s SARS," Olive said. "But, in my personal opinion, there is a very remote chance of it being SARS, because there is no SARS in Hong Kong. If there is SARS in Hong Kong, that would be a different (story)."

Last year, the Philippines reported 12 SARS cases, including two deaths. All but four were traced back to a Filipina nurse who contracted the virus in Toronto and infected her father after returning home. Both have died.

Health Alert

The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) has ordered the close monitoring on the condition of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in Hong Kong.

DOLE information department chief Nico Fameronag said Labor Secretary Patricia Sto.Tomas has already directed the Philippine Overseas Labor Office (POLO) to check on the condition of all Filipinos employed in the former British Crown colony.

"We are now closely monitoring the condition of Filipino workers in Hong Kong, although, based on the latest information we reveived from our POLO office, there was no report of new SARS cases there," Fameronag said.

The latest suspected cases in southern China and in the Philippines - if confirmed - would be the first in the community at large and could signal the start of a new SARS season.

In Kuala Lumpur, a Malaysian woman is being checked after developing a fever on a trip to China, including a visit to Guangdong.

Thousands of Filipino women work in Hong Kong as nurses and domestic helpers, part of a diaspora of at least seven million overseas workers who prop up the economy by sending money back to their families.

During the SARS outbreak last year that killed about 800 people when it was spread around the world by travelers, the Philippines was able to limit its death toll to two by beefing up screening at its borders.

Since the SARS crisis of the past year ebbed in July, only researchers exposed to SARS samples in laboratories have caught the disease. — Mayen Jaymalin, Reuters, AFP, AP

Civet Cat Slaughters

Fears of a resurgence over the northern winter have been sparked by the infection of two medical researchers, one in Taiwan and the other at a laboratory in Singapore.

Chinese officials are also testing a television producer suspected of carrying a mutated strain of SARS.

Authorities in southern China Monday ordered a mass slaughter of civet cats after a local man was confirmed to have the SARS virus, long suspected of being linked to the ferret-like animal.

"A decision has been made from today to close down all wild animal markets in Guangdong," Guangdong Health Bureau official Feng Liuxiang said.

"We will seek to seal and block all civet cats from other provinces and take action to kill civet cats in Guangdong province," Feng said.

He estimated that around 10,000 animals, also known as the masked palm civet, would be slaughtered. An order was also issued for the extermination of rats, flies, mosquitoes and bedbugs.

The China Daily said Monday that rats found in the apartment of the man with SARS had also tested positive for the virus.

The crackdown came after China’s leading SARS expert Zhong Nanshan confirmed that a 32-year-old television journalist from Guangdong had SARS, and linked it to the civet cat — popular for the perceived medicinal properties of its meat.

Zhong said that an official announcement upgrading the patient to a confirmed SARS case could come later Monday.

"It’s possible the WHO will announce it today... but the tests showed that he definitely has the SARS coronavirus infection," Zhong, a respiratory disease expert, said at a press conference in Hong Kong.

The WHO said it was still awaiting test results from all the labs and any official announcements would be in consultation with the Ministry of Health.

"These tests are what we consider the golden standard," said WHO spokesman in Beijing Roy Wadia.

The news has sent a new round of jitters through Asia, which has been nervously awaiting a new outbreak of SARS since the illness emerged in China early last year and caused a global health scare.

Researchers in Guangdong and Hong Kong said the SARS coronavirus found in the television journalist was similar to the genetic structure of a virus found in the civet cat.

"The findings suggest that they may be of the same lineage and are different from the animal or human SARS-like coronavirus found last year," said Zhong.

"This indicates that another sub-lineage of SARS-like coronavirus has again jumped from wild animals into humans over the past few months."

The latest findings came from research carried out jointly by the Guangdong Center for Disease Control and Hong Kong University.

The suspected case emerged over a week ago when the man was admitted to hospital in Guangzhou city with a fever, the first indication of SARS.

While Guangdong provincial authorities said soon after that tests showed he was suffering from SARS, the WHO and experts from the central health ministry said more research was needed.

While welcoming the announcement that civet cats would be killed, the WHO urged extreme caution to prevent the trade being driven underground.