BEIJING — China confirmed yesterday that two laboratory workers have contracted the SARS virus and that the mother of one has died — making her the first apparent SARS fatality in the country since July. Hundreds of people have been quarantined.
The government, trying to prevent an epidemic, announced that it would start disinfecting public buildings and monitor travelers at all ports of entry.
“Anyone who has a temperature over [100.4 degrees Fahrenheit] will be taken to the hospital,” said a Health Ministry statement published in Chinese newspapers. “No one will be exempt.”
SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, triggered a global health crisis last year and killed 774 persons — 349 of them in mainland China. More than 8,000 were sickened worldwide. The disease appeared to have subsided in China in the summer.
The two new confirmed cases had worked in laboratories in Beijing for China’s Centers for Disease Control and probably were infected there, the Xinhua news agency said. They were identified as a 31-year-old man from Beijing and a 26-year-old woman in central Anhui province, the first cases confirmed in those areas since the summer.
A 20-year-old nurse in Beijing also is suspected of having SARS.
The mother of the woman in Anhui has died, the ministry said. She is thought to have contracted the illness from her daughter, a medical student who studied at the laboratory in Beijing for two weeks last month.
The daughter was treated last month for viral pneumonia at Beijing’s Jiangong Hospital, where she came into contact with the nurse suspected of having SARS.
“When the daughter was ill, the mother accompanied her all the time,” the Health Ministry said.
The mother was hospitalized April 8 with a fever and an unidentified pneumonialike virus, the statement said. She died Monday.
The mother and daughter reportedly took several train journeys together between Beijing and Anhui and might have exposed others to the virus. Hospitals along the rail line have been put on alert to report any cases of pneumonia.
“Here it looks like we had human-to-human transmission, and there’s clearly a travel history where they might have exposed other people,” said Maria Cheng, a spokeswoman at the World Health Organization in Geneva.
The WHO is considering sending a team of experts to China to help officials trace the women’s movements in the past few weeks, she said.
In Anhui, 117 persons were quarantined and one showed signs of a fever — a key symptom. In Beijing, 188 persons have been quarantined and five reportedly had fevers.
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