#13,789
The 2003 SARS epidemic left an indelible mark on Hong Kong's Psyche (see SARS And Remembrance) - as between March 11th and June 6th of that year a total of 1750 cases were identified in the city, and of those, 286 died.
Having also experienced the first human outbreak of H5N1 in 1997, and having dealt with the arrival of more than 2 dozen avian flu infected cases from the mainland over the years, Hong Kong's Centre for Health Protection (CHP) understandably takes their vulnerability to infectious disease outbreaks very seriously.After a very SARS-like MERS coronavirus emerged in the Middle East in 2012, the CHP began to proactively test anyone with recent travel history to the region with flu-like symptoms for the virus.
We often see 2 or 3 tests announced each week by Hong Kong's CHP, and to date, all have come back negative.Hong Kong also took sharp notice of South Korea's MERS epidemic in 2015 - which was sparked by a single infected traveler - and eventually infected 185 people across 16 hospitals, and claimed 38 lives (see Superspreaders & The Korean MERS Epidemiological Report).
All of which explains the prominent headlines overnight in Hong Kong's Chinese and English language media of a swift response to a suspected MERS case in the city. This headline from the South China Morning Post.
Express rail train taken out of service after passenger intercepted in Hong Kong with suspected Mers symptoms
PUBLISHED : Monday, 14 January, 2019, 10:47am
- Man in question, a foreign national, was sent to hospital by ambulance
- Areas he passed through in West Kowloon terminus were cleaned and disinfected
A few hours later, the CHP published:
Good news, although it will require a follow up test in 48 hours to confirm this patient's negative diagnosis (see AJIC: Intermittent Positive Testing For MERS-CoV).The Centre for Health Protection of the Department of Health today (January 14) reported that the suspected case of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) pending results earlier today, upon preliminary testing, tested negative for MERS Coronavirus.
Ends/Monday, January 14, 2019
Issued at HKT 14:53
While there is a good chance this patient will continue to test negative, health authorities recognize that it only takes one infected case to slip through to spark a much larger outbreak.And so it is not terribly surprising to see that another (apparently unrelated) suspect case has been announced in the past few hours by the CHP (see below). While this one will likely prove negative as well, protecting the public against threats like these is a never ending job.
