SARS: understanding the coronavirus: Accuracy of WHO criteria was similar in a "non-SARS" hospital in Singapore

doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7415.620-a

BMJ 2003;327:620 (13 September), doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7415.620-a

Letter

SARS: understanding the coronavirus

Accuracy of WHO criteria was similar in a "non-SARS" hospital in Singapore

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—We report a similar experience at the NationalUniversity Hospital, Singapore, to that of Rainer et al in HongKong's New Territories.¹

We screened patients for severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)by using criteria from the World Health Organization and transferredsuspect and probable cases to Tan Tock Seng Hospital, the country'sdesignated SARS hospital, for further management. Patients withundifferentiated fever or respiratory symptoms who did not meetWHO criteria (and would not be accepted at Tan Tock Seng Hospitaldue to the limited resources available) were monitored in isolationrooms with daily blood counts, chest radiography, and temperaturemonitoring every four hours without antipyretic drugs untilan alternative diagnosis was established.

From 17 March to 16 May 2003 we isolated 909 patients and transferred47 patients directly to Tan Tock Seng Hospital for evaluation(table). Thirteen of the 18 patients with SARS treated at . . . [Full text of this article]

Paul Ananth Tambyah, consultant infectious disease physician

mdcpat@nus.edu.sg

Kamaljit S Singh, associate consultant infectious disease physician, Abdul G Habib, associate consultant infectious disease physician

National University of Singapore, National University Hospital, 5 Lower Kent Ridge Road, Singapore 119074

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Evaluation of WHO criteria for identifying patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome out of hospital: prospective observational study: Timothy H Rainer, Peter A Cameron, DeVilliers Smit, Kim L Ong, Alex Ng Wing Hung, David Chan Po Nin, Anil T Ahuja, Louis Chan Yik Si, and Joseph J Y Sung
BMJ 2003 326: 1354-1358. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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