Isolated Woman Identified Not SARS Patient

Mrs. L, 27 years old, who has been suspected as a positive patient of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) and been isolated in the designated hospital in Seoul was turned out that she was not positive to SARS.

The chairperson of the specialist consultation commission of National Health Institute, Mr. Park Seung-Cheol, who is professor of medical college of Korea University, said April 14 that we could not find out pneumonia opinion after checking the chest X-rays and computer tomography (CT) of the patient. And he added that we at this moment couldn’t regard her as a patient of SARS.

The chairperson Mr. Park said, “The patients of SARS might be those who have visited the contaminated area and contacted with the patients who are infected by SARS. And they have always respiratory symptoms like high fever and cough and pneumonia symptoms by chest X-rays.” He added, “Three physicians who reviewed the results of CT of the patient reached a conclusion that the woman had no symptoms of pneumonia.”

But Mr. Park gave a comment to the Board of Health to take the proper prevention of SARS for her because she had stayed for a long time in the contaminated area and seemed to have similar symptoms of SARS. In the observance of Mr. Park’s comment, the Board of Health decided to isolate her and inspect her whether she had been contaminated by other respiratory virus or not. The result of Mrs. L’s examination turned out to be negative on the test of influenza, too.

The Board of Health reported that the physician said, “Mrs. L has now just fever and is in recovering.”

And the Board has let Mrs. L`s family and the seventeen flight attendants of the airplane are isolated in their houses until this weekend, which will be 10 days of the latent period. The Board also tries to reach to 150 passengers by phone call, those who were on board in the same flight with Mrs. L.

The personnel in the Board of Health said, “Mrs. L`s family and the airplane attendants don`t seem to have any symptoms, the 77 passengers also seem look fine and the other 73 passengers will be verified soon.”

And the Board of Health designated two more hospitals for isolation each one hospital in North Jeolla Province and South Gyeongsang Province. Now there are 13 places nationwide for isolation hospitals.

WHO (World Health Organization) designated April 12 (local time) two more places, London of England and unknown place of the U.S., as the possible and dangerous area of SARS.

Jin Lee leej@donga.com