M A I N   N E W S

2 test negative for SARS

New Delhi, April 20
Reports of the sequencing tests of a 42-year-old New Zealand national and a seven-year-old girl have been found to be negative for SARS, a Health Ministry official said here today.

“The tests conducted by doctors at the NICD on their samples for the corona virus which causes SARS turned out to be negative. Neither of them was infected with SARS,” Director-General Health Services S.P. Agrawal told reporters.

The virus found in the samples of both cases “does not fit into the definition of SARS”, he said.

The New Zealander who had transited through Bangkok was still at the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital and would be discharged soon with the advice of home quarantine, he said.

His blood samples were earlier found to be negative, but the urine and sputum samples were found to be positive, he said, adding that the patient had been in contact with his brother who had been quarantined in Australia for having travelled to an affected area. The girl from Gurgaon, who returned to India from Beijing with her parents on April 5, had also been found negative for SARS, he said.

Nausheen, who lives with her parents in Beijing, was not infected with SARS, he said, adding that she had symptoms of cough and cold and had earlier been taken to the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences on April 17 after she developed fever.

The family, from Gurgaon, was in Beijing and returned to the country after the SARS scare.

Another patient, who arrived from Malaysia on April 18, was admitted to the Safdarjung Hospital with fever and cough for the last one month. Results of his biological samples were still awaited.

There was no SARS death reported in the country and the Government was taking various measures only as caution. The government was spending about Rs 8,000 on each patient who was a suspected SARS case.

On reports of some hospitals refusing admission to suspected SARS cases, he held a meeting with doctors from various hospitals and advised them to admit the patient and inform the NICD so that it could send a team of doctors to examine their samples.

So far, the only confirmed SARS case was from Goa, where a 32-year-old man, who returned from Singapore, had been tested positive for SARS and had been discharged with an advice of home quarantine, he said. PTI