Replies

The situation in China may be coming to light.

This is what I mean by surreal and frustrating.

It came to light months ago. We talked about it here at FR. There were some articles in the western press.

I'm looking and see 100 articles on "atypical pneumonia" before the WHO warning jumpstarted coverage of this.

Here is just one from immediately before this "broke" as major news.

Copyright 2003 South China Morning Post Ltd.
South China Morning Post (Hong Kong)
March 14, 2003
SECTION: FEATURE; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 582 words

HEADLINE: Virus hits three more hospitals; Critics claim earlier warnings may have curbed the outbreak, as staff say they were only told of the danger days after flu emerged

BYLINE: Mary Ann Benitez

BODY:
The mystery flu outbreak spread to three more hospitals yesterday, prompting critics to claim staff and patients at the Prince of Wales Hospital should have been alerted earlier over the virus to help contain it.

Thirty-nine medical staff were last night in hospital, 24 with atypical pneumonia, and 10 patients who are not hospital employees were admitted with pneumonia to the Eastern Hospital, a signal that the outbreak might be spreading into the community.

A 49-year-old Chinese-American businessman who was flown from Hanoi on March 6 died yesterday of atypical pneumonia at the Princess Margaret Hospital.

The World Health Organisation issued a global alert on Wednesday over outbreaks of the respiratory ailment in Guangdong, Hanoi and Hong Kong.

A medical worker at Prince of Wales Hospital apparently showed flu symptoms on March 3, but it was not until last Saturday that the worker admitted himself to hospital with two other staff, the Post has learned.

However, no public alert was put out until Monday, and employees at the Prince of Wales Hospital said notices were only sent to staff about the pneumonia outbreak on Wednesday.

One employee said: "I only learned that some staff on the ward were sick on Monday. Superficially, I cannot say there has been a delay, but we were not told about it formally, we were told only by colleagues working in the medical department. It wasn't until Wednesday that the hospital got round to sending out a staff memo."

Patients' Rights Group spokesman Ho Hei-wah said an early alert could have prevented more hospital workers from being infected.

"Probably not as many people would have been infected if the medical staff had been more alert," Mr Ho said.

Iris Chan Sui-ching, chairwoman of the Alliance of Patients' Mutual Help Organisations, said the Prince of Wales Hospital should have issued warnings to patients so they could seek treatment in other hospitals to avoid the risk of infection.

Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food Yeoh Eng-kiong yesterday announced he had set up a special intergovernmental taskforce and an expert committee on the disease.

He said the infection attacked hospital workers and close relatives who had been caring for sick patients, with a high proportion of those affected suffering from atypical pneumonia.

"The very peculiar features of this outbreak of pneumonia is that although the symptoms are very common to most respiratory illnesses and pneumonias - where you have fever, sore throat, muscle aches and cough - the outbreak seems to occur in hospital environments. And the predominant people who were affected were staff caring for patients," Dr Yeoh said.

He said that so far, no agent had been identified as the cause of the infection, but preliminary tests had ruled out the H5N1 bird-flu virus and legionella bacteria.

Hospital Authority chief executive William Ho Shiu-wei said they were tracing the medical records of Ward 8A patients at the Prince of Wales Hospital to identify the patient who may have infected staff.

As of 6pm yesterday, 112 hospital workers had reported sick with flu-like symptoms. Of those, 39 are in hospital, with two in serious condition. Twenty -four have atypical pneumonia, said Dr Ho.

Eighteen are in the Prince of Wales Hospital in Sha Tin, two are in the Eastern Hospital in Chai Wan, three are in the Kwong Wah Hospital in Yau Ma Tei, and one is in the private Union Hospital, also in Sha Tin.

GRAPHIC: (Photo: Robert Ng); Patients in the emergency ward of Prince of Wales Hospital don masks to protect themselves from the flu.

LOAD-DATE: March 15, 2003