The Hindu : SARS incidence tapering off?

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, May 02, 2003

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Other States - Maharashtra

SARS incidence tapering off?

By Arunkumar Bhatt

PUNE MAY 1. The total number of SARS-positive persons in Maharashtra now is 15 as another batch of six staffers of the Siddhartha Hospital here tested negative. The result of tests done on five more persons is awaited but the authorities hope that the incidence of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome would taper off.

Nine staffers of the hospital, who had treated the SARS-affected D'Silva family, were found positive yesterday, ringing alarm bells in the city and State. These included two doctors. The blood samples of 21 medical staffers, para-medics and others were taken. Now the state of the remaining five is to be known.

This medical staff had treated four members of the D'Silva family, now cured of SARS and discharged. But at least 49 persons including 35 of the Siddhartha Hospital, who had come into direct contact with the family are quarantined in Pune and 13 others are isolated in Ambernath, a town near Mumbai where the D'Silvas live. Besides, 70 persons who had come into indirect contact with the family are kept under observation of the Health Directorate. These persons remain confined to their homes and have been advised against meeting anybody.

Two drivers who had brought the family to Pune to enable them to attend the wedding of their daughter Julia are among the infected and are recuperating in the isolated ward of Kasturba Hospital in Mumbai. The family got infected from the son who had returned from Jakarta to attend his sister's marriage. Now the bridegroom Shailesh, the priest and their families are among the quarantined.

Maharashtra's Health Minister, Digvijay Khanvilkar, and senior officers of his Ministry who have been camping here for the past few days, denied a television channel report that 200 persons had been quarantined in Pune. They said that the medical personnel found SARS-positive were not showing clinical symptoms of SARS. They would undergo additional tests and their quarantine period would end only after they tested SARS-negative and were not dangerous to others.

The officials said that separate wards had been created in three hospitals of Pune for the suspected and confirmed cases with adequate testing and treatment facilities for primary tests and follow-up action.

Mr. Khanvilkar said that 800 masks were received and health officers of the Deputy-Director rank would visit the districts from tomorrow to guide and supervise preparations in hospitals there to ensure that the health administration was prepared to meet any eventuality. He said that he was happy with doctors, nurses and para-medics who were doing excellent work.

Dr. Renu Bhardwaj, head of the Department of Microbiology of B.J. Medical College here, said that still it was a case of tertiary infection in Maharashtra and that had no reached any epidemic level. She said it was not possible at this stage to be sure if SARS existed in India in some form before its outbreak in China and that the Indians enjoyed a better kind of

immunity. "That would require academic research and right now the thrust was on diagnosis and control," she told this reporter.

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