SARS: Kuching Hospital 19 held

Kuching - Fifteen patients and four nurses have reported respiratory problems Monday at the Malaysian psychiatric hospital in Kuching, where health authorities had sealed off Sunday for fear it may be the site of a SARS outbreak. 

"We hope the cases are not SARS-related," said Health Ministry Deputy Director General Ismail Merican. "For now, nobody comes in and nobody gets out of the hospital," Ismail told reporters Monday.

The quarantine affected 540 hospital staff and patients, an official said at the Sarawak capital on Borneo island, Ismail said a high-level health ministry team was investigating the situation at the hospital, which has more than 280 health workers and 262 patients.

Fears of severe acute respiratory syndrome surfaced in the hospital after three patients developed high fevers and other pneumonia-like symptoms earlier this month.

The decision to seal off the hospital was made after the symptoms spread to other patients and the nurses.

None of the cases have been classified as probable SARS yet.

It was not immediately clear how anyone at the hospital might have contracted SARS, which has killed two people and infected at least four others in Malaysia.

There have been no known probable SARS cases in Sarawak.

Officials at the hospital noted that one of their patients had been recently visited by relatives from Hong Kong, but they told Malaysian officials they had not been ill, Ismail said. -- Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin

Brudirect.com News