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| No relapses seen among recovered SARS patients on Chinese mainland: official |
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None of the 1,400-plus recovered SARS patients on the Chinese mainland has suffered a relapse, however, their status is being closely monitored, according to China's national center for disease control.
The number of cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) on the mainland reached 4,280 on Monday, of which 1,433 patients have already recovered and been discharged from hospitals and another 206 have died.
"To date, we have not received any reports of relapses among recovered patients," said Yang Weizhong, a technical official at the Chinese Center for Disease Prevention and Control (Chinese CDC).
Meanwhile, Ministry of Health official Mao Qun'an said the country has been closely monitoring all recovered patients in
order to detect and report any relapse.
Although the situation in Beijing, and in neighboring Shanxi, Inner Mongolia and Tianjin remains "quite serious," SARS cases in most Chinese provinces remain "imported" and have been strictly contained, said Yang, director of the Chinese CDC's office for disease control and emergency response.
"Many provinces have new cases to report in the past week," he said.
The Chinese capital is the hardest-hit, with 1,897 diagnosed cases and 1,510 suspected cases reported thus far. One hundred and three people in Beijing have died from the contagious disease.
The city reported 98 new cases and three deaths for the period from 10:00 a.m. May 4 to 10:00 a.m. May 5, compared with 21 new cases in Shanxi and 12 new cases in Guangdong province in south China during the same period.
Despite the outcome of SARS research around the world, Yang said researchers should conduct further studies to get a full picture of the new disease.
"We've achieved some positive results in containing and treating SARS thanks to the knowledge we have. But it appeared just six months ago and we don't fully understand it," he said.
Researchers in Hong Kong and on the Chinese mainland have detected the coronavirus strain, thought to be the causative agent of SARS, in human feces. However, Yang said, there has been no strong evidence proving that the virus is transmitted through the digestive tract.
The SARS virus is still believed to be transmitted through respiratory droplets during face-to-face contact, he said.
Source: Xinhua News Agency
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