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To: MSI who wrote (31268)	4/10/2003 9:17:49 PM
From: TobagoJack	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

Home isolation' ordered Friday, April 11, 2003 scmp.com MARY ANN BENITEZ The Hong Kong government yesterday ordered the virtual house arrest of 150 family members of infected Sars patients. The number of cases in the city reached two shy of 1,000 and three more people died in the five-week-old outbreak. Patients' family members will not be allowed to leave home for 10 days from next Monday or receive visitors. Department of Health teams will give them daily medical checkups and police will make house calls to ensure they comply. If they do not, they will be moved to isolation camps. "It is not house arrest. It is home isolation," Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food Yeoh Eng-kiong said. "The purpose is to facilitate early detection and treatment of all household contacts of Sars patients to reduce to the absolute minimum [the] risk of the disease spreading [further] into the community." The order came 13 days after the government on March 28 invoked laws to put 1,080 people under quarantine for 10 days from March 31 in an effort to control the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome. In that case, they were allowed to go out daily for medical check-ups to four designated clinics. On March 31, the government ordered the isolation of a whole housing block on Amoy Gardens after more than 200 residents were infected there, sealing the remaining residents inside. The government changed its mind a day later, moving 200 residents to holiday camps. The isolation order was lifted on Wednesday at midnight, allowing the residents to return to their disinfected flats. Dr Yeoh defended yesterday's harsher new measures, and denied Hong Kong had been too slow in following the lead of Singapore which, early on, ordered 1,500 residents to stay at home for 10 days to prevent the spread of Sars. Since the outbreak was carried from Hong Kong to the city state in late February, it has reported 118 Sars cases, with nine deaths. In contrast, 998 patients with Sars had been admitted to Hong Kong hospitals by yesterday. Hong Kong only recognised the outbreak when staff at Prince of Wales Hospital began falling sick on March 8. Yesterday, three patients - a 63-year-old man and a 73-year-old woman who had chronic illnesses, and a 46-year-old woman - died, all of them at Princess Margaret Hospital, taking the death toll in the city to 30, and to 109 worldwide. Dr Yeoh said: "We had considered using home isolation from the start. This is something that has not been done in modern Hong Kong history. It is not very easy for the public to accept these decisions. We were very concerned about the effect [home isolation] would have on people seeking help." Director of Health Margaret Chan Fung Fu-chun said those who did not comply with the order would be sent to isolation camps. "We will enlist the help of the police to [check] compliance on an ad hoc basis,'' she said. Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa has asked Dr Yeoh to seek international expertise to help contain the outbreak. Mr Tung was quoted as saying at a lunch with Executive Council members yesterday that he had told Dr Yeoh to "get the best brain in the world" on the case. Five World Health Organisation experts have been working on Sars with Department of Health officials in Hong Kong.