Posted on 01/01/2004 4:50:30 PM PST by Prince Charles
Confusion reigns over suspected SARS case
18:23 30 December 03
NewScientist.com news service
A suspected case of a man infected with the SARS virus, has been reported in China. More tests are being carried out as a "confused laboratory picture" emerges.
Some reports suggested on Tuesday that SARS had indeed been confirmed by laboratory tests on samples from the 32-year-old television producer.
Previous incidents since the world was declared SARS-free in late June, have proved to be either false alarms or isolated accidents in laboratory workers. For example, a case of SARS was confirmed in a medical researcher in Taiwan on 17 December.
"The case has been confirmed," Feng Shaoming, spokesman for the Guangdong Centre for Disease Control, told AFP on Tuesday. "Our experts at the Centre for Disease Control have made many tests and they are all positive."
But the World Health Organization stresses the case is still only suspected of being Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome.
"The consensus is that this is still a suspected case," says Dick Thompson, a spokesman for WHO in Geneva.
He told New Scientist that most of the samples from the sick man had tested negative. "But at least one of the samples is positive in different labs using different tests," he says.
False positive results
A nasal swab sample has tested positive for SARS coronavirus using a PCR-based DNA test.
But Thompson cautions that the positive result could be due to "cross reactivity" - where closely related viruses may prompt the false positive results. Positive results for SARS were found in patients in a suspected outbreak in Vancouver, Canada in August, but WHO declared they did not have SARS.
WHO has sent a team of three experts to Guangdong where the latest suspected case has emerged. A WHO laboratory expert arrived in Beijing on Monday. However, Chinese authorities will be sending samples from the patient overseas for testing.
Rapid isolation
The latest patient with suspected SARS fell ill on 16 December with fever and headache. He visited a hospital on 20 December, where he was diagnosed with pneumonia. However, chest x-rays showed changes in his lower right lung. He was then placed in isolation.
All 81 contacts of the man have been traced and isolated. None are sick.
The TV producer became ill in Guangzhou, in China's southern Guangdong province. SARS first emerged in Guangdong in November 2002. It is thought to have jumped to humans from wild animals such as the civet cat, sold as culinary delicacies in Guangdong's live markets.
"The investigation so far has not shown any possible source of infection for him," says Thompson. But he believes the early detection and rapid isolation of the patient may help prevent possible spread of the disease.
The SARS epidemic rampaged across the globe in 2003 - causing over 800 deaths and 8400 cases in 30 countries worldwide.
Shaoni Bhattacharya
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