Lessons from SARS Timeline - SARS Transmission and Hospital Containment

[Shannon Bennett]

<!-- Book content --><!--main-content-->Emerg Infect Dis. Mar 2004; 10(3): 395?400.
doi: 10.3201/eid1003.030650


PMCID: PMC3322797




SARS Transmission and Hospital Containment

Gowri Gopalakrishna,<SUP>*</SUP> Philip Choo,<SUP>?</SUP> Yee Sin Leo,<SUP>?</SUP> Boon Keng Tay,<SUP>?</SUP> Yean Teng Lim,<SUP>?</SUP> Ali S. Khan,<SUP>?,</SUP><SUP>1</SUP> and Chorh Chuan Tan<SUP>

</SUP><SUP>*</SUP>

<SUP>*</SUP>Ministry of Health, Singapore
<SUP>?</SUP>Tan Tock Seng Hospital, Singapore
<SUP>?</SUP>Singapore General Hospital, Singapore
<SUP>?</SUP>National University Hospital, Singapore
<SUP>?</SUP>Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
<SUP>1</SUP>Short-term consultant, Global Outbreak and Alert Response Network (GOARN), World Health Organization
<SUP>

</SUP>Corresponding author.
Address for correspondence: Chorh Chuan Tan, Ministry of Health, College of Medicine Building, 16 College Road, Singapore 169854; fax: 0065-6222-2416; email: tan_chorh_chuan@moh.gov.sg

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Abstract

<!--article-meta-->An outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) was detected in Singapore at the beginning of March 2003. The outbreak, initiated by a traveler to Hong Kong in late February 2003, led to sequential spread of SARS to three major acute care hospitals in Singapore. The critical factor in containing this outbreak was early detection and complete assessment of movements and follow-up of patients, healthcare workers, and visitors who were contacts. Visitor records were important in helping identify exposed persons who could carry the infection into the community. In the three hospital outbreaks, three different containment strategies were used to contain spread of infection: closing an entire hospital, removing all potentially infected persons to a dedicated SARS hospital, and managing exposed persons in place. On the basis of this experience, if a nosocomial outbreak is detected late, a hospital may need to be closed in order to contain spread of the disease. Outbreaks detected early can be managed by either removing all exposed persons to a designated location or isolating and managing them in place.






http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3322797/