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Sars return or lab accident singapore wonders { September 10 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=healthNews&storyID=3419072http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=healthNews&storyID=3419072
SARS Returns or Lab Accident? Singapore Wonders
Wed September 10, 2003 07:52 AM ET
By Jason Szep
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Is SARS, the deadly flu-like disease, back? Is the world about to see a new epidemic or has Singapore just suffered a freak, isolated lab accident?
Health authorities are struggling with these questions.
Singapore, where the virus killed 33 people between March and May, said this week Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome has returned after two series of tests Monday and Tuesday on a 27-year-old medical researcher turned up positive for the virus.
But the World Health Organization said the man lacks classic SARS symptoms. He does not have a lung infection, for example. He also has no breathing problems, and it is unclear how he caught it. The WHO refuses to classify the case as SARS.
"We are asking Singapore to help us understand that," said Peter Cordingley, WHO's spokesman in the Western Pacific.
Debate over what exactly the man is suffering throws the spotlight on the difficulty of diagnosing SARS, which experts say likely jumped from civet cats to humans in southern China last year before spreading to 30 countries.
By the time the World Health Organization had declared the global outbreak under control on July 5, SARS had infected nearly 8,500 people globally, killing more than 800, and costing billions of dollars in lost business across Asia.
Singapore and the WHO, after working hand-in-glove during that outbreak, are now taking two very different diagnostic routes.
RELIABILITY OF TESTS
Singapore conducted two rounds of polymerase chain reaction and serology tests. These amplify genetic material and are key diagnostic tools. But they have a small margin for error.
A study of Singapore's last SARS outbreak showed five percent of people with fever had tested positive but did not go on to develop the disease, said Dr Balaji Sadasivan, Singapore's minister of state for health.
Further tests by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could clarify whether the case is genuine.
Another question is how could SARS suddenly appear again on a island where nobody has suffered from the disease since May 11 and where it was deemed eliminated by the World Health Organization on May 31.
The man, a post-doctoral student, had been studying the West Nile virus at National University of Singapore, working in two labs, including one where live SARS virus samples were kept.
Sadasivan says the victim -- who had no known contact with other SARS patients and had not traveled outside Singapore recently -- probably caught SARS at that SARS lab. He had spent time there on August 23, three days before he came down with fever.
The health ministry said on Wednesday it was still investigating how he became sick.
SARS spreads through droplets by sneezing or coughing and such direct infection can usually occur within a radius of about 3-6 feet, experts say.
It can survive outside the human body for three to six hours. Contact with any object that is tainted by droplets containing the virus, for example, a contaminated phone, could lead to infection if a person then touches their eyes, nose or mouth.
Medical experts warn the virus could re-emerge during winter and some have criticized China for its recent lifting of a ban on the trade of civet cats. Scientists in Hong Kong said in May that SARS likely jumped to humans from the wild animal, a delicacy for centuries for many people in southern China.
One of these scientists, Guan Yi, said on Wednesday it was very difficult to stop the trade and consumption of civet cats and called for it to be regulated instead.
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