All three patients put under isolated treatment in the Government Hospital of Macao have received optimistic test results, which showed negative of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), announced a senior health official with the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) government Friday afternoon.
The SARS test result given by the Hong Kong Medical Department to a 52-year-old Macao resident, the third suspected patient in Macao, arrived here Friday. So far, all three suspected patients in Macao have passed PCR tests, which did not find coronavirus in their respiratory secretion samples, said Lei Chin Ion, deputy director of the Health Service.
Earlier this week, the first suspected patient, a 38-year-old saleslady, have got her samples tested twice. Both of the results showed negative of SARS. The sample test of a Dutch student was equally optimistic.
"However, the patients will continue to be kept in isolation care, and those who had contacts with them will need to be separated for a few more days," said Lei.
He said that since there is a possibility of error tests, doctors with the hospital will ask for two or three sample tests for each patient. "A final conclusion can only be made by combining the test results with clinical observation," Lei said.
On Wednesday, the Health Bureau in Zhuhai City, south China's Guangdong province, which is adjacent to Macao across the border checkpoint of Gongbei, notified its counterpart in Macao about the first confirmed SARS case it has found.
Macao has stepped up border quarantines by installing 30 new portable infrared thermometers at the SAR's four checkpoints Friday, which further facilitated the measuring of visitors' body temperatures upon their entry.
(Xinhua News Agency April 26, 2003)
