8 New SARS Cases, 11 Deaths in HK

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, May 08, 2003

8 New SARS Cases, 11 Deaths in HK

Eight patients were confirmed to have SARS following admission to public hospitals earlier and 11 patients died as at 1 p.m. Wednesday, the government announced.

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Eight patients were confirmed to have SARS following admission to public hospitals earlier and 11 patients died as at 1 p.m. Wednesday, the government announced.

The new deaths brought to 204 the total number of deaths relating to SARS. The deceased include eight men and three women who are aged from 42 to 86.

Twenty-six patients have recovered and have been discharged from public hospital, bringing to 984 the total number of patientshaving recovered.

There are now 466 patients in hospital, of whom 89 are recovering patients who are in convalescence and preparation for discharge.

Most of the patients currently in hospital are showing positiveresponses to the treatment protocol. Sixty-six patients are receiving treatment in intensive care unit.

20% of confirmed SARS cases in HK not caused by coronavirus

An official of the Hong Kong government said Wednesday that the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a symptomatic name, and it is likely that 20 percent of the so called confirmed SARS in Hong Kong are not due to the coronavirus recently identified.

E.K. Yeo, secretary for health, welfare and food, made the remarks Wednesday at the health services panel meeting of the Legislative Council. He said this means that the number of people actually infected with the atypical pneumonia could be less than the reported number of the so called confirmed cases.

"The government puts out a list of buildings in which confirmed SARS patients have lived. But among all the confirmed SARS cases, only 80 percent have been estimated to be cases of coronaviral infection. The rest 20 percent should have been due to non-coronaviral pathogens," he said.

"The problem is, in such SARS cases, usually not every virus that caused SARS can be identified in laboratory tests. Now there are certain cases which have been classified as SARS that have notbeen caused by a coronavirus, although the means of transmission may be similar," the official said.

Yeo said he will review the more than 1,600 so called confirmedSARS cases in Hong Kong in future to verify their connection with the coronavirus, adding that to date, there is a lack of the optimal method or the "gold standard" to test for the virus.

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