Posted on 05/23/2003 3:48:45 PM PDT by riri
National Taiwan University Hospital yesterday reported the first case of a suspected severe acute respiratory syndrome patient who had recovered and checked out of the hospital but was readmitted with symptoms similar to those of SARS.
Hospital officials reported that the middle-aged women visited the hospital on April 23 after developing a fever, and was listed as a suspected SARS case. She checked out May 12, but developed a fever again May 19, and her lungs showed changes.
The officials believed that she was contagious between the first time she checked out and her relapse.
Chang Shan-chun, director of contagious department of National Taiwan University Hospital, said that usually SARS patients have a constant high fever, but the woman's fever fluctuated and was at times not severe. When she checked in the first time, she had no symptoms of pneumonia, so that she was only listed as a suspected SARS case, and the hospital had given her no fever medicine.
After observing her for five days without seeing any signs of fever, which meets the standard of the Department of Health - guidelines stricter than that of World Health Organization - she was allowed to go home.
But the woman, while in home confinement, again developed a fever, and her lungs began to show changes. Fortunately, the women developed the symptoms in home confinement, and she should not have transmitted any virus to others, Chang said.
Chang said that it is unclear whether the woman had suffered a relapse or was infected the second time. As the period between her first checkout and second check-in was only seven days, or exactly one cycle of the supposed incubation period for the virus, there are two possibilities.
Chang said that the hospital had to check further to determine if she had reacquired the virus.
He also said that there are two SARS cases who had recovered and checked out, have developed no fever, but had diarrhea, coughing and breathlessness, some of the common symptoms of SARS patients.
He said that as some SARS patients have not very obvious symptoms, such as no obvious fever, or show signs only of diarrhea, the two patients could not be ruled out as being contagious.
Chang said that three SARS cases have demonstrated the importance of home confinement, adding that it may be wrong for the DOH's Center of Disease Control, to speed up the screening process, asking for only three days to end the quarantine if those in home confinement do not develop a fever.
Been eating Civets?
Bingo. She should have been in quarantine for a period of time after she "recovered."
These are my biggest fears regarding SARS. I really hope they can contain it long enough to get an idea if SARS victims are long-term survivors.
"...and the hospital had given her no fever medicine" [because she had no fever] was the phrase that really jumped out.
We have extensively discussed fever medicine and have posted research concerning the practice of reducing fever. Fever is critical to the body's defenses and in some cases the use of analgesics in conjunction with a virus can actually cause death (influenza/chicken pox and aspirin = Reyes syndrome, for instance).
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