Thursday, but three members of a Millersville family who traveled
recently to China were in isolation at home after one developed
symptoms of the deadly respiratory ailment.
Anne
Arundel County health officials said a 45-year-old woman who came down
with a cough, shortness of breath and a fever higher than 101 degrees
will remain isolated at her home until at least next week — 10
days after she is symptom-free.
The woman’s husband
and 1-year-old daughter have been asked to stay home as well,
county officials said, though they are not considered suspect cases
and may be allowed to resume normal activities Friday.
Health authorities said they were encouraged to report that
two
possible cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome have proved to be
false alarms. A man from Canada who had checked in to Upper Chesapeake Medical Center in Bel Air on Wednesday with SARS-like
symptoms tested positive for strep throat, said Maryland Health
Secretary Nelson J. Sabatini.
And doctors determined
that a 26-year-old Hong Kong woman who has been hospitalized at
Maryland General since Monday had some other respiratory illness,
according to hospital spokesman Lee Kennedy.
The
woman, who was cleared for release Thursday night, never showed all the
classic signs of SARS and had been classified only as a “special
interest” case.
Nine family members who had been
isolated at a Bolton Hill apartment building have not become sick.
Those visiting Baltimore, including the woman, were planning to
leave town Thursday night, said Dr. Peter L. Beilenson, the city health
commissioner.
Meanwhile, a 40-year-old medical resident at Sinai Hospital who became ill during a trip to Toronto — a SARS hot spot — was scheduled to be released from Johns Hopkins Hospital, also Thursday night.
Beilenson
said the man no longer has a fever or cough but will remain in
isolation for eight more days, either at his Belvedere Towers
apartment or another location. Treatment guidelines call for suspect
cases to remain secluded until 10 days after their symptoms have
cleared up.
“We feel comfortable discharging him
now because he’s asymptomatic,” Beilenson said.
Beilenson said X-rays showed no signs of pneumonia, which is common in
the most serious SARS cases, but added that doctors could find no
other cause for his illness.
Health officials are
not aware of any of the man’s “contacts” becoming ill. The doctor took
at least two airplane flights after he fell ill and even showed up for
work Monday at the Kennedy Krieger Institute, where he is doing a
rotation.
The Atlanta-based Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention has reported 247 possible cases of SARS in
the United States, none of them fatal. The outbreak, which apparently
began in China’s Guangdong province in November, has sickened
4,402 people and killed at least 263 worldwide.
In
the Anne Arundel case, the woman called her physician Tuesday to
describe her symptoms and was told to go to the emergency department
at North Arundel Hospital in Glen Burnie, according to Dr.
Sohail Qarni, medical consultant for the county health
department.
She was immediately isolated in a room
with negative air pressure, which keeps contaminated particles from
circulating throughout the hospital.
Health care
workers shipped blood, stool and respiratory samples to the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta for analysis. Qarni
said a chest X-ray showed no signs of pneumonia.
The woman’s husband and child, who traveled with her to
Guangdong province, had some “mild illness,” Qarni said, but
their symptoms weren’t consistent with the disease.
County Health Officer Frances B. Phillips said
Thursday that she decided not to alert the public about the
Millersville woman immediately because of the woman’s status as a
“suspected” SARS case, and because the family cooperated by
staying in seclusion and sharing information about their contacts.
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Phillips, whose department has screened and cleared 11
residents for the virus, said it could be misleading to release such
information early because the woman’s health status could have
easily changed.
Sabatini, the state health sec
retary, said that local officials have been taking an aggressive
approach in dealing with anyone who might have the illness.
“I think that the citizens of this state can take some comfort in the fact that the appropriate agencies are really work
ing together to do everything possible to protect [their] safety and
health,” he said.
Sun staff writers Lynn An
derson and Ryan Davis contributed to this article.