WHO to investigate possible SARS case
( 2003-12-29 09:11) (Agencies)
An expert with the World Health Organization will travel to Beijing on Monday to help Chinese authorities identify what may be the mainland's first case of SARS in months, a spokesman for the health group said.
A battery of tests have left it unclear whether a 32-year-old man in the Guangdong Province has the contagious severe acute respiratory syndrome, spokesman Roy Wadia said Sunday.
The suspect case would be the first to emerge in Chinese mainland since SARS patients were discharged from a Beijing hospital last summer.
The WHO expert en route to the region will help sift through the test results in hopes of reaching a conclusion, Wadia said.
Unlike influenza, SARS has no known treatment. The National Institutes of Health is working on a vaccine, but none is ready.
In this year's outbreak, SARS spread to more than 8,000 people in more than two dozen countries in North America, South America, Europe and Asia. It then seemed to stop spreading, for reasons health officials could not explain. WHO declared the outbreak over in July.
Symptoms can include a high fever, chills, headache, general feeling of discomfort and body aches.
Patients may develop a dry, nonproductive cough and pneumonia. Some require ventilation.
WHO officials based in the Chinese capital already are working with Chinese officials on the matter, Wadia said from Beijing.
"We are extremely pleased with what the Chinese Health Ministry is giving us," he said.
The suspected case is that of a Chinese freelance television producer who came down with a fever December 16 and was hospitalized December 20. He was not classified as a suspect SARS case until Friday, the Health Ministry said. Guangdong is the province where the disease was first recognized in February.
Chinese health officials have tested people with whom the man came into contact, and none was found to be infected, the Health Ministry said.
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