Escaped RI SARS patient in HK

Agencies, Hong Kong

A runaway SARS patient who fled Indonesia where he was being kept in isolation was tracked down in Hong Kong Saturday, while a second patient with fewer SARS symptoms escaped a hospital quarantine in Bali.

The 47-year-old Briton, believed to be Indonesia's sole case of probable Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), went missing after checking out of a Jakarta hospital Wednesday.

The man, a Hong Kong resident, was ordered to remain at home for a further 10 days but when health officials visited his home Friday he was found to have disappeared.

The Indonesia authorities alerted their counterparts in Hong Kong who discovered he had returned to his home in the territory.

"He had recovered and he had to be monitored for 10 days," Indonesian health ministry official Sjafii Ahmad told Reuters. "But yesterday he left for Hong Kong without our knowledge."

He added, however, that Indonesian authorities had been able to learn of the airline he was on and advise it and passengers of the situation. They had also informed Hong Kong authorities.

Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous country, has no confirmed cases of SARS but several suspected cases have been reported.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong Health secretary Margaret Chan said health officials would be contacting him to try and confirm if he was suffering from SARS or if he had recovered.

"Based on that information, we'll take appropriate action," she said as quoted by the news agency DPA.

If he was found to be suffering from SARS, he would be hospitalized and details of the flight he took from Indonesia to Hong Kong would be made public to track down fellow passengers. Indonesia, which appears to have been largely bypassed by the SARS epidemic sweeping through other Asian countries, has only reported one probable case of the virus, which has killed more than 180 people worldwide.

The man is an employee at a Jakarta textile company. He recently visited Singapore and Hong Kong, both of which are battling to curb outbreaks of the virus.

Newspaper reports in Indonesia said he was described by Indonesian doctors as an "uncooperative" patient.

"He did not want to reveal which flight he took or whom he met during his trip to Singapore," said Azimal, a member of the government's SARS investigation team.

"He talks in broken English, so he is really giving us a hard time," Azimal said earlier this week. He added that the man had said he wanted to return to England.

Meanwhile, a Hong Kong woman with symptoms of SARS fled a hospital in Bali on Saturday morning, AFP reported, quoting Elshinta radio.

The patient, identified as Jessica Wong, 35, slipped out of the Sanglah hospital in Denpasar after being treated overnight, said Dr. Wayan Sujata.

The woman had a fever, shortness of breath and a sore throat but an X-ray photo showed no irregularities on her lungs, Sujata said. "Her anxiety was excessive," he said.

In another development, Hong Kong reeled from a dozen more deaths from SARS, its biggest one-day jump, just a day after the territory's leader said the outbreak would stabilise.

It also said a male flight attendant with Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd had been confirmed with SARS, the first infected cabin crew member in the former British colony.

The Health Department said it was hunting for passengers and crew members on flight CX 714 from Singapore to Hong Kong on April 15, when the man began to feel sick.

Hong Kong has now had 1,358 cases of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, almost as many as on the Chinese mainland where the deadly virus first appeared in the neighbouring southern province of Guangdong.

Hong Kong has the world's highest SARS death toll -- 81. The flu-like disease hit Hong Kong in March and has been spread around the world by travellers.

Armed with brooms and mops, hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong people from housewives to senior officials began cleaning up the city to battle the spread of the virus.

Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa, who wore a face mask for the first time in public to inspect the clean-up, had only on Friday expressed optimism about the prognosis for SARS.

"Overall, the situation will stabilise gradually," he said. Senior executive manager of the Hospital Authority Liu Shao-haei told a news conference seven of the 12 dead were old people with a history of chronic diseases.

A total of 363 patients had been discharged, including 41 on Saturday.