Fourth Sars case confirmed in China
China today announced its fourth confirmed Sars case of the season but said the patient had already left hospital after a “total recovery”.
The disclosure prompted a strongly worded statement from the World Health Organisation urging an investigation.
The 40-year-old doctor from the southern city of Guangzhou fell ill on January 7, suffering from a high fever, sore throat and fatigue, the official Xinhua News Agency said citing an unnamed spokesman from the Health Ministry.
The man checked himself into a hospital, Xinhua said. Within five days, “his body temperature dropped to normal and his condition stabilised.”
The doctor, who works at a hospital in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province, denied having any contact with animals or Sars patients. Health officials have been monitoring 48 people who had contact with him, but none has showed any symptoms, it said.
Criticised for its sluggish, secretive response last year after the initial outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, the Chinese government has vowed to be more open.
Daily reports on suspected or confirmed cases are issued by the Health Ministry, and Xinhua reported on the third patient’s release from hospital minutes after it said it occurred.
According to Xinhua, Guangzhou experts diagnosed Liu as a suspected case on January 24 and the health ministry was informed two days later. It was not immediately clear why no word about him was released until today.
“The case raises a number of concerns about the manner in which the man’s infection was detected, treated and reported,” the World Health Organisation’s Beijing office said in a statement to reporters.
WHO said it was told about the case four days after the man was declared a suspected Sars patient and two weeks after he was isolated. WHO said it was “strongly recommending further investigation into the sources of infection of recent Sars cases in Guangdong.”
