Beijing doctors misdiagnose 1,000 flu cases as SARS

An official for the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention says at least 1,000 flu patients in Beijing have been misdiagnosed as having Sars so far this year.

Which leads me to ask, if 1,000 people in Beijing have been diagnosed with SARS (wrongly or rightly) now that flu season is here, how come we haven’t heard about it until now? One lab worker in Singapore is diagnosed with SARS, and the country goes into overdrive, with talk of bringing back temperature checks and closing schools. [Correction: The article apparently refers only to January through June of this year, when the last case of SARS in Beijing was announced. Thanks for poiinting this out Adam.]

Odd, by the way, how the story of the lab worker here has totally vanished from the Singapore media, with no update or anything. It’s like he vaporized.
[Update: Now there’s a kind-of sequel to his story, though it doesn’t really tell us about his present condition.]

The Discussion: 2 Comments

I think you read the article wrong. It was talking in the past tense. Remember, everything happened this year still, yeah?

September 14, 2003 @ 2:02 am | Comment

Thanks Adam, you are right. It is confusing because they don’t say “between January and June of this year.” The “so far this year” made me think of it as an ongoing situation continnuing through today.

September 14, 2003 @ 2:41 am | Comment

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