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Sars: Hospital staff confined
05/04/2003 18:52 - (SA)
Singapore - A doctor and 20 nurses at a Singapore hospital treating non-Sars patients were confined as suspected cases of the killer disease, and health authorities said late Saturday they are investigating how they could have possibly contracted the illness.
While the 21 staff of the Singapore General Hospital (SGH) are not part of the 103 confirmed cases of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars) here, they were admitted at the Tan Tock Seng Hospital - dedicated to treating Sars patients - after they developed fever.
Health officials told a news conference late on Saturday the incident highlighted the difficulties faced by medical workers in the fight to contain the spread of the mysterious pneumonia-like illness due to the absence of the necessary diagnostic kit to immediately detect the virus.
A ministry of health statement said it suspects that a Chinese man who was admitted to SGH for gastro-intestinal bleeding and right kidney abscess could have spread the disease.
The man, who developed a fever during his treatment, was earlier hospitalised at Tan Tock Seng on March 5-20 for chronic kidney disease and diabetes before being brought to SGH.
Singapore last month centralised all Sars patients at Tan Tock Seng and the adjacent Communicable Diseases Centre in order to contain the spread and allow other hospitals in the city-state to treat non-Sars illnesses.
"We are investigating the cause of the fever of the 21 hospital staff. It is unclear at this point in time whether the Chinese patient... is the source of infection for these hospital staff," the ministry said in a statement.
"The clinical picture of this patient at SGH is not suggestive of Sars. Nevertheless, active contact tracing is underway at SGH to identify all other health care workers, in-patients and visitors to minimise any possibility of further transmission," it said.
An esimated 500 people may have come in contact with the 21 SGH staff.
Tay Boon Keng, chair of the medical board at SGH, said they were moving to contain the spread of the disease at the hospital so that it can continue treating non-Sars patients.
"All workers at SGH will be monitored and in-house staff clinics were set up," he told reporters. "We need to protect this hospital to allow us to take care of other patients."
Tan Chorh Chuan, director medical services at the health ministry, said the lack of a diagnostic kit for SARS has made the fight against the disease more difficult because there are cases which may not be that visible.
"We can learn from this, but it is a constant battle. Imported cases and atypical cases may cause local outbreaks. This is a pattern we are going to see looking forward," he said.
Earlier on Saturday, the education ministry extended the closure of Singapore schools as part of efforts to battle the spread of Sars, which has killed more than 80 people worldwide, including six in Singapore. Two new cases were also reported.
Classes, shut down on March 27 and due to reopen on Monday, will now open in phases, Education Minister Teo Chee Hean said.
Junior colleges and centralised institutes will reopen on April 9, secondary schools on April 14 and primary schools on April 16.
One of the city-state's new Sars cases is a midwife at the KK Children's Hospital, who contracted the illness from a nurse at the Tan Tock Seng. The nurse had visited a ward at KK hospital while she had a fever.
Authorities are tracking down the estimated 500 people the midwife had come in contact with.
Four passengers arriving from Sars-affected areas were checked by nurses at Changi Airport Saturday but none was referred to the hospital.
Only 25 infected patients remain in hospital, 14 of them serious, while the rest have recovered.
- AFX
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