Eight SARS patients discharged from hospital

Only one of nine Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) patients put under hospital quarantine has not yet been discharged, the Department of Health (DOH) said yesterday.

However, the National Epidemiology Center (NEC) is closely monitoring 12 more people kept in isolation in various hospitals nationwide for manifesting SARS symptoms.

These 12 SARS suspects have a history of travel to SARS-affected countries and developed fever, cough and body pains. They were culled from an initial list of 80 patients who went to various hospitals manifesting SARS-like symptoms.

The rest were discharged after it was found that they did not have a history of travel to SARS-affected countries nor contact with SARS suspects or patients.

Pending the results of lab tests, the DOH reclassifies SARS suspects as SARS cases when their chest x-rays show evidence of pneumonia.

NEC chief Dr. Consorcia Quizon said the only SARS patient remaining in hospital is a 64-year-old Filipino businessman who arrived from Singapore in the second week of April.

He is still recovering from other infections "not related to SARS."

Six of the SARS cases who were discharged from the hospital were contacts of Adela Catalon and her father Mauricio, both of whom died of SARS.

These include a hospital technician who took an x-ray of Catalon the day before she died, Catalon’s mother, a niece, a brother-in-law, a female doctor and a male nurse at the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) who treated Catalon’s father.

The seventh case is a Filipino worker who returned recently form Hong Kong.

The eighth and most recently discharged SARS patient is a 34-year-old female software technician who returned from Taiwan in the first week of May. She has been discharged from the hospital after her condition improved, but is still under home confinement.

The Philippines has so far recorded 12 SARS cases, five of whom have been classified as "imported" since they acquired the disease from contact with SARS cases in other countries.

Lung specimens from the Catalons tested positive for the presence of a type of coronavirus scientists associate with SARS. The tests were conducted by the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine, which is also testing lung samples taken from other SARS cases.

Health officials remain confident that the World Health Organization (WHO) will strike the Philippines off its list of countries with a medium-level SARS risk on May 20.

Quizon said health officials have already asked WHO to come out with a new classification system for countries affected by SARS.

Currently, countries where SARS transmission has been contained will always remain on the WHO’s list of affected areas.

WHO has determined that the Philippines will be delisted if no more local transmissions of SARS happen between April 14 — the day SARS victim Adela Catalon died — and May 20.

"If we are sure, and we are 99 percent sure, that no one would get infected anymore (through local transmission), that would take us off the hook," Quizon said.

Health Secretary Manuel Dayrit said the DOH is monitoring the five to 10 people who had varying degrees of contact with the country’s two newest SARS cases, the businessman who came from Singapore and the female software technician who arrived from Taiwan.

None of the contacts has manifested any SARS symptoms thus far.

"I don’t think the developments on these two imported cases would affect our anticipation that WHO will reclassify the Philippines," Quizon said.

She, however, lamented that WHO’s system of classifying countries was patterned after the system used for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).

WHO classifies SARS-affected countries as "A" or low affected countries, "B" or moderately affected, and "C" or severely affected.

Quizon said that on May 20, WHO is expected to reclassify the Philippines from a group B country to group A.

"Such classification does not indicate risk, but the history pattern of SARS in a country," she said.

Quizon explained that a country is classified under group A if an imported SARS case infects a resident, and under group B if that infected resident passes it on to another resident, a "second generation local contamination."

She said that while the Philippines may be stricken off group B, the country will still be listed under group A, even if SARS has been totally contained.

"SARS is not like AIDS or diabetes, in which one who is a diabetic or an AIDS patient (will always be one)," Quizon said.

She added that "the downside of removing altogether a country from any of the categories is that it might create the impression that everything is okay. We cannot afford to let our guard down." – With Ding Cervantes