SINGAPORE. Changi and other regional airports are stepping up preventative measures, as a new SARS infection was reported in Singapore yesterday.
Singapore, which suffered 33 deaths out of 238 cases, has set up several “lines of defence” against SARS, including a public information campaign and telephone hotlines. Scanners installed at Changi airport continue to detect a high body temperature and anyone with a fever is referred to medical personnel.
In South Korea, the National Institute of Health (NIH) has strengthened its monitoring of the disease with inspections of travellers arriving from Singapore being reintroduced at the country’s airports. Hospitals in Taiwan have been notified to prepare themselves to restart anti-SARS measures. Health authorities in other Asian countries say they are well prepared for any further developments.
Nevertheless, the case of an ethnic Chinese man in Singapore reported yesterday does not represent a general public health threat, a World Health Organization (WHO) spokesman said today.
“From the public health perspective, this does not seem to be an emergency,” Dick Thompson of the UN agency’s communicable diseases division told Reuters. “We have rigid case definitions for SARS, and this person does not qualify.”
This marks the first new case in more than two months after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the global outbreak contained in early July. After first appearing in Southern China in November last year, SARS spread to 30 countries around the world, infecting nearly 8,500 people and resulting in more than 800 deaths.
