Taxi driver suspected of contracting SARS virus

A SINGAPORE taxi driver who ferried passengers to hospitals is suspected of having contracted the SARS virus, as the city-state’s infections continued to rise yesterday bringing the number of confirmed cases to 171.

SARS, which has killed about 160 people worldwide, struck four more people in Singapore including the taxi driver. Singapore has the world’s fourth-highest number of SARS cases.

Thirteen people have died from Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in the city-state, and two others are suspected of dying from the disease.

The health ministry said in a statement that the taxi driver had a history of ferrying passengers to hospitals, but had not driven along the airport route.

“Investigations to determine the source of infection are still ongoing,” the ministry said.

The bulk of SARS cases in Singapore have been traced to family and close contacts.

The man’s wife has developed a fever and 10 of his close contacts have been ordered to stay home, the government said.

Ninety-five people in Singapore have recovered from SARS and the authorities are closely watching a further 80 people, including eight children, who may have caught the disease.

Singapore stepped up its fight on SARS by announcing that from todayok, hospital patients will only be allowed one visitor each per day.

The government has taken aggressive steps to contain SARS beyond World Health Organisation recommendations, quarantining hundreds, closing schools and stationing nurses at air and sea ports. Airline passengers arriving in Singapore from some SARS-stricken areas are also being scanned for fever by a military-grade thermal imaging camera.

“It’s military equipment,” said Ho Kok Khay, a director of the company that makes the equipment, Singapore Technologies. “I am not at liberty to disclose what it was designed for.”

At Singapore’s Changi International Airport it has been adapted for use in the war on SARS, to scan human bodies for high temperatures.

Those who show up on the camera screen as “hot bodies,” or with a temperature greater than 37.5C (99.5F), will be pulled aside to have their temperature taken by a nurse, said government spokeswoman Evelyn Ong.

One of the Singapore Technologies Infrared Screening Systems is currently in use and another eight will be installed by the end of the week, she added.