Amid concerns that airline passengers have contracted Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) during a flight from Hong Kong to Beijing, the National Disease Surveillance Centre has said that there is no need to follow up passengers who shared flights with the two victims of the disease in the Republic.
Health authorities in Hong Kong have advised passengers on board Cathay Pacific flight CA 112 on March 15th to seek medical advice after nine cases of atypical pneumonia among members of a tour group on the flight. It is suspected that a couple in their 40s contracted the disease from a passenger, a man aged 73, who sat close to them on their journey to Beijing. He was feeling unwell after visiting his brother, a victim of SARS, at a Hong Kong hospital. The couple subsequently joined the tour group, leading to a further spread of the disease among its members.
Dr Darina O'Flanagan, Director of the National Disease Surveillance Centre (NDSC), said it was following EU guidelines as on contact tracing. "At present, the Irish expert committee on SARS agrees with the decision of the EU Network Committee of Communicable Disease Control on the matter of airborne spread", she said.
The EU Committee is applying the same guidelines to SARS as it does when considering the possibility of TB transmission during an aircraft journey. These state that contacts must have symptoms at the time of the flight and that the air journey must be in excess of eight hours duration.
Both patients hospitalised here with SARS flew from South East Asia to the Republic via airports in Europe. One completed the journey from Amsterdam to Dublin. The other flew from London to Dublin, before connecting with a domestic flight from Dublin to Knock. The Irish Times understands neither was symptomatic during the flights. The man and woman are recovering in Mayo General and Tallaght Hospitals respectively.
Meanwhile, a second possible cause of SARS has been identified by scientists at the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta.
A previously unrecognised version of the coronavirus has been cultivated from 50 per cent of specimens taken from victims of the disease, according to CDC Director, Dr Julie Gerberding. Earlier, a type of paramyxovirus was isolated from SARS patients in Hong Kong. While both families of viruses are common, experts said that only a new strain could explain the severe nature of the illness which has caused 3 per cent of those affected to die.
Latest figures from the World Health Organisation show 456 cases of SARS across the globe. 17 people have died from the severe atypical pneumonia associated with the syndrome.