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'I read a post yesterday that said victims in Hong Kong are relapsing. I have not seen this anywhere, have you?'
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I just saw this go by on the FOX news ticker. It says some patients in China previously declared recovered are having relapses. I know this can happen with colds and flu so I assume there will be a certain amount of this with this syndrome too.

I do think however that we are yet in the early stages of discovery concerning what actual 'recovery' means with this disease. That is worrysome. There are still too many things we don't know about the course of this disease and what we can expect to see among the survivors.

Hong Kong, Apr 30: Some SARS patients in Hong Kong have suffered relapses after being listed as recovered and discharged from hospitals, according to health officials who said today they were investigating the cases.

A hospital authority spokeswoman said on condition of anonymity that less than 10 patients have relapsed. Officials were ``very concerned'' about the cases and were studying them.

The number of new cases reported each day recently has been staying in the teens, which some experts say is encouraging. Bigger daily totals had been reported earlier this month.

Another 32 people have recovered and been discharged, or a total of 791, health officials told a news conference.

Health department spokesman Jimmy Lee earlier confirmed there had been a few relapses, but he declined to provide numbers or details. Lee confirmed news reports that one patient had fallen ill again and was readmitted to a hospital last Thursday after being discharged three days earlier.

University of Hong Kong microbiologist Malik Peiris said although relapses are ``not a good thing,'' they weren't surprising given how little is known about the virus that causes SARS.

``We are still learning about the SARS disease so we cannot say it's not possible,'' Peiris said. He predicted patients with relapses can recover fully, based on experience with other diseases from coronaviruses, a strain of which experts believe causes SARS.