Posted on 03/16/2003 6:29:25 AM PST by Lessismore
The Center for Disease Control reported yesterday Taiwan's third case hit of atypical pneumonia, a potentially fatal disease, cases of which have now been found in China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Singapore and Canada.
The center said the World Health Organization reported yesterday increases in atypical pneumonia cases in Hong Kong, Singapore and Canada.
Chen Tsai-ching (³¯¦A®Ê), the center's director-general, said in a press conference that the four cases in Canada were from the same family. "Three of them have traveled to Hong Kong and two of them have died," said Chen.
Chen added that no fatal cases have been reported in Hong Kong and Singapore.
According to the center, Taiwan's third case of atypical pneumonia was a 64-year-old female. An Ilan hospital reported the case to the center yesterday afternoon, Chen said.
"The patient, having been traveling in Guangdong Province between Feb. 23 and March 1, returned to Taiwan via Hong Kong. She began to have fever on March 7 and was hospitalized on March 13," Chen said.
The center reported the first two atypical pneumonia cases, a China-based Taiwanese businessman and his wife, on Friday.
According to Chen, the businessman suffers diffuse pneumonia and adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). "His wife and the third case's symptoms are relatively less severe," Chen said.
According to the center, the 54-year-old businessman had been traveling in Guangdong Province between Feb. 8 and 21. After returning to Taiwan on Feb. 23, he began to have fever on Feb. 25.
The businessman and his wife have been admitted to National Taiwan University Hospital.
The hospital said the couple has been quarantined. "They stay in a ward that has an independent air conditioning system. The air in the ward does not circulate to other areas of the hospital," a hospital press release said.
The hospital has also asked staff tending the couple to take strict precautionary measures such as wearing masks and caps and washing hands frequently.
According to the hospital, the businessman's situation has been deteriorating after he was hospitalized on March 8.
Although the center reported the couple as atypical pneumonia cases, the hospital described yesterday the couple's disease as "pneumonia plus ARDS."
The hospital said it could not verify whether the couple's disease was related to the atypical pneumonia cases in China, Vietnam and Hong Kong before results from the couple's saliva and blood tests were available.
Chen said various bacteria and viruses could cause atypical pneumonia.
"It is likely that a mutated virus has caused this tide of severe pneumonia," Chen said.
Chen excluded the possibility that the couple's illness is linked to bird flu and also said it was unlikely bacteria caused the disease.
"If bacteria caused the illness, antibiotics would be effective. However, the antibiotics doctors administered on the husband have not been effective in improving his situation," Chen said.
He also urged people to cancel unnecessary trips to countries where atypical pneumonia cases have been reported.
UN Warns of Worldwide Threat from Killer Pneumonia
Sat March 15, 2003 11:21 AM ET
By Richard Waddington
GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Health Organization warned on Saturday of a worldwide health threat as a mystery killer pneumonia spread from east Asia to other parts of the globe.
Releasing a rare "emergency travel advisory," the United Nations health agency said an ill passenger had been taken to an isolation unit in Frankfurt, Germany, on Saturday after being removed from a plane en route from New York to Singapore.
Some 155 other passengers who had been due to change planes or stay in Frankfurt were placed in quarantine there, while the remaining 85 passengers and 20 crew on the Singapore Airlines flight continued their journey, German officials said.
A spokesman for the Geneva-based WHO said there were reports two people had died in Canada, taking the death toll to nine worldwide since the first outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), an atypical pneumonia whose cause is not yet known, was detected in China in February.
"This syndrome, SARS, is now a worldwide health threat," WHO director-general Gro Harlem Brundtland said in a statement.
Among the dead is an American businessman taken ill in Hanoi after visiting Shanghai. He died on Thursday in Hong Kong where 47 cases have been reported.
Some 40 people were being treated in Hanoi, where one nurse died on Saturday, according to local health officials. Cases have also been reported in Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.
WHO spokesman Dick Thompson said the passenger taken from the plane in Frankfurt was a Singapore doctor who had visited New York after treating some of the first suspected SARS patients in Singapore.
"If the suspicion (of pneumonia) is confirmed, the transit passengers will have to remain under observation in quarantine for seven days in order to diagnose any possible infection and prevent the disease spreading," the Social Affairs Ministry in the state of Hesse, which includes Frankfurt, said in a statement.
HIGH ATTACK RATE
WHO issued its first global alert for 10 years earlier this week because of the speed at which the disease travels and because patients are not responding to the usual treatments for pneumonia, Thompson said.
"As reports of cases are confirmed, you will see that there is a very high attack rate. When they get sick, they get very sick," he said.
"We have been doing tests for weeks now in the world's best laboratories and we still do not know whether it is a virus or bacteria," the spokesman added.
Most of the latest cases have been among hospital workers.
The first outbreak was reported in February in China's southern Guangdong province, where 305 people were infected and five people died.
Singapore and Taiwan have issued travel warnings after some cases followed trips to Hong Kong or mainland China.
It was after a visit to Hong Kong, where anxious locals have been sweeping surgical masks off pharmacy shelves, that a Canadian woman died of severe pneumonia on March 5. Her son, who did not travel with her, also fell sick and died.
In its alert, WHO said travelers and airline crews needed to be aware of the first symptoms, which include high temperature and difficulty in breathing.
It was also likely that anybody taken ill would have been in contact with a person diagnosed with the disease or who had traveled to an area where cases had been reported, the alert said.
But WHO said it was not calling for restrictions in travel to any area. (--Additional reporting by Michael Steen in Frankfurt)
Severe pneumonia hits Canada
By Wojtek Dabrowski
Mysterious pneumonia spreads
TORONTO (CP) — A severe form of pneumonia which is spreading through Asia has struck Canada, killing a mother and her son in Toronto and hospitalizing four other family members.
The disease, known as atypical pneumonia, has also emerged in British Columbia, where one was in intensive care at a Vancouver hospital and another person has recovered, Toronto health officials said late Friday night.
The West Coast cases are related to each other but are not connected to the Toronto cases, said officials.
One of the dead and two other family members had recently returned from Hong Kong, where atypical pneumonia has been spreading, said Dr. Karim Kurji of the Ontario Health Ministry.
Toronto Public Health said Sui-chu Kwan died March 5, and her son, Chi Kwai Tse, aged 44, died March 13.
Four other family members are in Toronto hospitals, officials said.
Four other members of the family who have not been diagnosed with the disease have been told “not to go out for the time being, waiting to see if they get any symptoms,” said Barbara Yaffe, associate officer of health with Toronto Public Health.
She also said it’s impossible to tell how many people have been exposed to the family members afflicted by the disease.
“Part of the reason we’re going public is to help identify contacts because for the first individual who died, there was a funeral and there was a visitation,” Yaffe said.
“We have been working with family members to identify who may have come and they don’t necessarily have a complete list and I understand there were quite a few people,” she said.
While health officials stopped short of directly linking travel to the affected regions of Asia with the disease, they did caution that it was one factor to consider.
In Vancouver, Dr. John Blatherwick, the chief medical officer at the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, said all city hospitals had been put on alert.
“We’re spreading the word to the hospitals and telling doctors that if you see a person with an unusual pneumonia, ask them if they’ve been travelling in Asia,” Blatherwick told BCTV News on Global.
Another factor is exposure to the family of the dead.
“The public health system is following standard procedure to notify the public about the outbreak of a potential communicable disease,” Kurji said.
Ontario’s coroner was investigating one of the deaths and laboratory testing was being conducted at the provincial laboratory with additional specimens being sent to the federal laboratory in Winnipeg.
Health Canada was also notified.
Atypical pneumonia has been blamed for several deaths in Asia and caused fears of an epidemic in China in recent months.
The disease is an inflammation of the lungs caused by bacteria. It is known as “atypical” because of the symptoms that it causes, which include fever, headache, confusion and diarrhea. It can also cause a shortness of breath and muscular stiffness. Typical pneumonia, on the other hand, usually causes severe coughing and a fever.
Yaffe said that symptoms to watch out for when looking for atypical pneumonia are fever in excess of 38.5 C, muscle aches, a sore throat, coughing and any shortness of breath.
Both types of pneumonia can be treated with antibiotics.
The World Health Organization issued a global alert about the illness on Wednesday, saying that until more is known about the outbreaks, patients with atypical pneumonia who may be related to the outbreaks should be isolated.
“At the same time, WHO recommends that any suspect cases be reported to national health authorities,” the warning said.
Incidences of the disease have been reported in Hong Kong and Hanoi, Vietnam, where dozens of hospital employees have been afflicted. At least nine people in Singapore have also fallen ill.
An American businessman who lived in Shanghai died of the illness at a Hong Kong hospital on Thursday.
And in mid-February, the Chinese government reported that 305 cases of atypical pneumonia had killed five people in Guangdong province.
Since then, authorities in China have downplayed the outbreak, insisting that such illnesses are not uncommon in country’s southern region.
QUICKFACTS
Ontario Health officials say atypical pneumonia has stricken an Ontario family, killing two and sending four to Toronto hospitals. Two more people were in a Vancouver hospital, officials said. Some facts:
What it is: Inflammation of the lungs caused by bacteria.
Symptoms: Sudden fever, headache, confusion, diarrhea, cough, muscular stiffness, possibly rapid breathing or shortness of breath.
Symptoms of typical pneumonia: Cough, fever.
Caused by: Various bacteria, fungi; including legionnella pneumophile; spread by vapour or ventilation systems; chlamydia tsittaci; spread by live turkeys, parrots, pigeons.
Susceptible: The very old, very young, those with chronic disease and people with HIV.
Treatment: Most patients respond to antibiotics. Mild cases may not require medication.
The World Health Organization calls it that. We all know that it's actually "Captain Tripps."
By VERENA DOBNIK Associated Press Writer
March 15, 2003, 4:04 PM EST
NEW YORK -- City health authorities on Saturday alerted hospitals to watch for symptoms of a mysterious pneumonia believed to have afflicted a doctor from Singapore who visited New York.
The man was taken off a flight from New York to Singapore on Saturday during a stopover in Germany, and is quarantined at a Frankfurt hospital. His two travel companions also were hospitalized.
"He is a physician who cared for a patient with this illness in Singapore," said Sandra Mullin, spokeswoman for the New York City Department of Health.
During a teleconference Saturday, top U.S. health officials said more than 150 cases have been reported worldwide of the so-called severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS. The doctor who passed through New York was the first suspected case in Europe.
No cases have so far been identified in the United States.
In addition to the doctor from Singapore, a man traveling from Atlanta, Ga., to Canada is "reported to have developed some respiratory symptoms," said Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
The two major symptoms of this pneumonia are high fever accompanied by difficulty in breathing. The potentially fatal illness is believed to spread "person to person," said Gerberding, with an incubation period of between two and seven days.
On Saturday, Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, director general of the Geneva-based World Health Organization, warned that the illness is becoming "a worldwide health threat."
In New York, "we're sending out a broadcast alert to all hospitals to be on the lookout for any illness that could be suggestive of this illness," Mullin said. New York City has more than 70 hospitals.
She said New York health authorities, working with the CDC and the WHO, were in the process of investigating the details of the case involving the Singapore doctor.
He began to suffer symptoms while in New York, said Dr. Angela Wirtz, a health official in the German state of Hessen where he's being treated.
The man had attended a recent conference in New York, but it was not immediately known exactly when he was in the city, the nature of the meeting or which airline he used, Mullin said.
In any case, "those who had casual contact with someone with this illness are likely not at risk," Mullin said.
The WHO on Saturday issued emergency guidance for travelers, urging anyone who may have come in contact with someone infected to watch for symptoms such as high fever, coughing and shortness of breath. SARS also may be associated with headache, muscular stiffness, loss of appetite, confusion, rash and diarrhea.
A cluster of cases has been reported in Southeast Asian countries, including Vietnam, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand.
While no formal travel restrictions are in place, U.S. health officials said travelers may wish to postpone trips to the countries at risk if the visit is not essential, Gerberding said. And health officials are preparing to issue an alert for passengers returning from countries where SARS has been reported.
In Atlanta, the CDC emergency operations center has been activated, and its staff is working round the clock responding to the outbreak. U.S. health officials are in close touch with health officials in China, where cases have been reported at least several weeks back, said Tommy Thompson, U.S. secretary of health and human services.
The CDC is also working with foreign laboratories to analyze samples from patients.
"We are doing everything humanly possible to learn what is causing this outbreak." said Thompson, speaking to the teleconference from O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, before flying to Washington. On the Net: World Health Organization: www.who.org Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: www.cdc.gov Copyright © 2003, The Associated Press
This pneumonia kills people, more than just a bad bug.
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