Now the CDC in Guangzhou is confirming SCMP story on the Guangzhou waitress being antibody positive. Cross reacting antibodies is a weak argument. Although there was some cross reactivity with OC43 in Vancouver, the cross reactivity was only shown by some newer tests. The more widely used test did not detect the OC43 antibodies and neither Vancouver nor the CDC confirmed the antibody data (and Winnipeg also had negative results when using the more conventional test).
If the patient doesn't have SARS, the the positive antibodies could have come from a prior subclinical infection, since many market workers have SARS CoV antibodies. However, SARS symptoms, antibody positive in Guangzhou in early January certainly is a strong indicator of SARS.
The Philippino case is also a question mark, since both SARS antibodies and antigens can be hard to detect early. To rule out SARS, a cause for the pneumonia needs to be identified. Lack of SARS cases in Hong Kong, at this time certainly is not a strong argument.
Early cases in Guangzhou were reported to have only 5 fatalities out of 305, so a quick recovery, as happened in this season's index case in Guangzhou, is also not an indication that the patient didn't have SARS.
Officials Probe
Possible New Case
Of SARS in China
By MATT POTTINGER
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
HONG KONG -- Health officials in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou are trying to determine whether a waitress with fever and pneumonia has SARS, a health official said.
If she does, she would be the city's second known case this month, after a 32-year-old TV producer who was confirmed this week as having been infected with the SARS virus.
The waitress "hasn't yet reached all the criteria for a suspected SARS case, but it can't yet be ruled out that she has the disease," said the official at the Center for Disease Control office in the city's Yuexiu district, where the woman first sought treatment.
Chinese newspapers said the woman worked at a restaurant that serves wild animals as cuisine.
The CDC official said the woman was tested for SARS antibodies and "the result is positive, but the antibodies might have been produced by another type of virus." SARS antibody tests are rather crude, and infections by other types of coronaviruses, including ones that cause the common cold, can cause false positives. The official said the woman is being treated in isolation at a hospital in Guangzhou. |
