Posted on 09/19/2003 8:25:24 PM PDT by Brian S
From correspondents in Hong Kong September 20, 2003
A HONG Kong hospital has raised a new SARS alert after four patients were observed to have fever, a key symptom of the potentially deadly illness, a hospital spokeswoman said today.
Initial investigations had shown that the four women, aged 24 to 73, had fevers which had been caused by influenza and not the potentially fatal SARS virus, but further tests and observations were being carried out, she said.
All the patients were in a stable condition at the Prince of Wales Hospital in the New Territories.
The incident was the fourth SARS alert this week in which the first stage of a new three-tier warning system for the disease has been raised since being introduced on Monday.
Yesterday, nine residents of a home for the elderly were treated for fever and respiratory tract infection at a Tseung Kwan O hospital. They were all in a stable condition today and believed to have the flu.
Seven patients at Hong Kong's Castle Peak Hospital on Wednesday developed high fever and upper respiratory tract infections - symptoms of the deadly Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) virus - but later tests showed they also were suffering from the flu.
On Tuesday, a 34-year-old Hong Kong woman suspected of having SARS was cleared by health officials, easing fears of an early re-emergence of the disease which killed nearly 300 people in the territory earlier this year.
In the early part of the year SARS struck more than 8,000 people and left more than 900 dead in 32 countries, with some 349 of the fatalities and 5,327 of the infections recorded in China.
Hong Kong was the second worst-affected region with 297 SARS-related deaths and nearly 1,800 infections.
Agence France-Presse
Let's pray that SARS was a fluke.
Let's just pray it doesn't return.
No power at home because of Isabel.
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