Flu patient triggers SARS scare in Vizcaya

BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya — Rumors about a suspected SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) patient admitted to the Veterans Regional Hospital here, have sent jitters among Vizcayanons.

Hospital authorities, however, belied the rumors, saying the 22-year-old female patient, who had worked for four months as domestic helper in Germany and who made a stopover in Hong Kong before flying home last March 22, was only suffering from ordinary flu.

Dr. Cirilo Galindez, hospital director, said the reports were exaggerated, adding that there has been no confirmed SARS case in the province.

Fears about the woman being possibly afflicted with SARS prevented personnel of the Cagayan Valley Doctors Hospital in Tuguegarao City, Cagayan from admitting her when her relatives rushed her there last March 28.

The woman’s relatives then brought her to the Isabela Medical Center in the capital town of Ilagan, but it merely referred her to another hospital until she finally ended at the Veterans Regional Hospital here.

Melfei Bunguihan, a chemistry teacher at the Saint Mary’s University here, said the rumors spread like a wildfire after nursing students doing their on-the-job training at the hospital confirmed the ailing woman’s presence.

Residents’ anxiety heightened when a radio station reported about the woman possibly suffering from the dreaded SARS, an "atypical pneumonia" which still has no known cure.

As a result, most patients at the Veterans Regional Hospital requested that they be transferred to another hospital, fearing that they could be infected by the killer illness.

But Galindez said the woman has been cleared of SARS. Dr. Maurila Danga, regional health officer, corroborated this.