Escaped RI SARS patient in HK

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.