Progress of The SARS Outbreak - March 2003

March 2003

On March 4, a 27-year-old Hong Kong man who had visited a guest in Metropole (on the 9th floor) 11 days earlier was admitted to Prince of Wales Hospital. At least 99 hospital workers (including 17 medical students) were infected while treating him.

On March 11 Carlo Urbani travelled to Bangkok to attend a medical conference. On the flight he fell ill and upon arrival in Bangkok told an awaiting friend not to touch him and to call an ambulance to take him to a hospital. He was isolated in an intensive care unit.

A similar outbreak of a mysterious respiratory disease was reported among healthcare workers in Hong Kong.

On March 12 WHO issued a global alert about a new infectious disease of unknown origin in both Vietnam and Hong Kong.

On March 15 WHO issued a heightened global health alert about the mysterious pneumonia with a case definition of SARS as after cases in Singapore and Canada are also identified. The alert included a rare emergency travel advisory to international travelers, healthcare professionals and health authorities.

CDC issued a travel advisory stating that persons considering travel to the affected areas in Asia (Hong Kong, Singapore, Vietnam and China).

On March 17 An international network of 11 leading laboratories was established to determine the cause of SARS and develop potential treatments.

CDC held its first briefing on SARS and said the first 14 suspected SARS cases were being investigated in the U.S.

On March 20, WHO reported that several hospitals in Vietnam and Hong Kong were operating with half the usual staff, because many workers stayed home out of fear of getting infected. WHO raised the concern that substandard care of the infected patients may contribute to the spread of the disease.

On March 25, Hong Kong authorities said nine tourists came down with the disease when a mainland Chinese man infected them on a March 15 Air China flight to Beijing. SARS started to hit Amoy Gardens Block E heavily.

The Singapore Government enforced compulsory quarantine of any infected person.

On March 27, Arthur K. C. Li, the head of the Hong Kong Education and Manpower Bureau, announced class cancellation of all educational institutions. The Ministry of Education of Singapore announced that all primary schools, secondary schools and junior colleges were to be shut until April 6, 2003. Polytechnics and universities were not affected.

On March 29, Dr. Urbani died in Bangkok of a massive heart attack.

On March 30, Hong Kong authorities quarantined estate E of the Amoy Gardens Apartment due to a massive (200+ cases) outbreak in the building. The balcony was completely closed for all uses and guarded by the police. The residents of the building were later transferred to the quarantined Lei Yue Mun Holiday Camp and Lady MacLehose Holiday Village on April 1 because the building was deemed a health hazard. Most of the cases were tied to apartment units with a north-western orientation that shared the same sewage pipe. According to government officials, the virus was brought into the estate by an infected kidney patient (type of kidney illness was not specified) who after he was discharged from Prince of Wales Hospital, visited and thus infected his elder brother living in a flat on the seventh floor. Through excretion the virus spread through plumbing. One speculated theory that supported airborne transmission was that the virus was spread through dried up U-shaped P-traps in the plumbing and was blown by a maritime breeze to the ventilation of the estate's balcony and stairwells. It was confirmed that the virus can spread via droplets, but this latest outbreak made the officials question the possibility of spreading through the air.