[CathyRyan]

and had suspected to be infected

posted twice in the article. It is my error and not the author's.

[Dog Gone]

He had also stayed in Bangkok for 13 hours before flying to India.

I wonder how many he infected at the Bangkok airport, in addition to other passengers on the planes from Australia, and to India.

[blam]

A passenger who flew in with cough tests positive for SARS

Toufiq Rashid

New Delhi, April 18: One more patient ‘‘assumed to be normal’’ by the health authorities has tested positive for SARS in the preliminary Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) tests.

The patient is a 42-year-old tourist from New Zealand who landed at the Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi, from Bangkok at around 11 pm on Thursday night. He has been admitted to the Ram Manohar Lohia hospital.

According to sources at the National Institute of Communicable Diseases, New Delhi, the genetic sequencing is being matched and the results would be declared in the next 24 hours.

The New Zealander was moved to the hospital with symptoms such as cough and breathlessness. Even at today’s briefing, the officials in the Health Ministry declared him to be ‘not fitting in the WHO definition of the disease’ — just like they did in the case of Prashil Varde, the first SARS case in the country.

The official version this evening was the patient was ‘afebrile’ with no symptoms. ‘‘His X-ray is normal and he has no fever,’’ they said. According to sources at the airport, the patient had attracted attention of the doctors at the health counters as he showed breathlessness. According to the NICD, the passenger had travelled to Australia where he stayed in New Port with his brother who was suspected to be infected and had been quarantined. He had also stayed in Bangkok for 13 hours before flying to India.

Meanwhile, a 7-year-old girl who had come from Beijing on April 5 has reported symptoms like cough and cold. The girl was first admitted to AIIMS and later moved to the Infectious Diseases Hospital. The NICD team took samples of blood and sputum and the girl was discharged as she ‘‘did not fit into the WHO defination of SARS.’’

‘‘The family from Sushant Lok in Gurgoan were working in Beijing and returned home after the SARS scare. She developed some symptoms and her parents took her to the hospital. She was discharged after a few hours of monitoring in the hospital,’’ said Dr Shiv Lal, director, NICD. SARS is being ruled out by the doctors though confirmatory reports are still awaited. ‘‘It has been 12 days since she landed in Delhi and the symptoms don’t fit the SARS case defination,’’ he said.

[blam]

HK SARS Deaths Reach New High

[CathyRyan]

the patient was ‘afebrile’ with no symptoms

[Cicero]

It's much too late to control the spread of SARS. Quarantining this man may slightly delay the spread of the virus into India, but it won't possibly stop it. He probably infected several dozen other people in the course of his travels, and they will be going in all directions before the symptoms manifest themselves.

Only a complete cutoff of travel to China, Hong Kong, and Singapore could have stopped the spread, and evidently that was too drastic a step for health authorities to agree on. Now it's out of the box. Of course all travel to China could never be stopped indefinitely, but it might have allowed another year or so to work on a vaccine. Too late now. At best they can only slow its spread a little.

[gogov]

where he stayed in New Port with his brother who was suspected to be infected and had suspected to be infected and had been quarantined.

He was with someone who was suspected of being infected with SARS and then he gets on a plane and travel to another country? Wow. Really stupid.