SARS situation in China potentially serious with possible new cluster - WHO

The United Nations health agency said today the SARS situation in China is considered potentially serious because of the multiple opportunities for exposure by hundreds of potential contacts after four possible cases of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome - including one death - were reported in the last two days.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is working closely with Chinese health authorities to confirm the status and full extent of this apparently linked cluster, and to prevent further spread of the viral disease, which last year killed 774 people and infected more than 8,000 worldwide, the vast majority of them in China.

To date, more than 300 contacts of the new cases have been identified and placed under medical observation.

In line with its own definitions, WHO has classified two of the cases as probable SARS with the other two remaining under investigation. But Chinese authorities have diagnosed two as clinically confirmed - a 20-year-old nurse in Beijing who remains in intensive care, and a 26-year-old laboratory researcher from Anhui province, who in March worked at the Chinese National Institute of Virology in Beijing where SARS research is known to be underway.

The researcher was attended in a Beijing hospital by the nurse. Her mother also provided bedside care, became ill in Anhui on 8 April and died on 19 April. Her clinical symptoms were compatible with SARS, and health authorities have retrospectively diagnosed her as a suspected SARS case.

The fourth person, a 31-year-old laboratory researcher who also worked at the virology institute, developed symptoms on 17 April and was hospitalized in isolation on 22 April. The health authorities have diagnosed him as a suspected SARS case.

According to WHO guidelines, classification as a confirmed case requires independent verification of results by an external international reference laboratory. Such procedures are considered necessary in view of the implications that confirmed SARS cases can have for international public health.