SARS victim 'infected in laboratory'

A 27-year-old researcher confirmed by Singapore officials as being the city-state’s first SARS case in four months probably caught the disease while working in a laboratory investigating the virus, the junior health minister said today.

“The single case is an isolated case. There is no person-to-person transmission. So there is no outbreak… There is no danger to public health,” Singapore’s minister of state for health Balaji Sadasivan said in an interview with The Associated Press in the Philippines.

Despite Singapore’s confirmation of the disease yesterday, the World Health Organisation has declined so far to treat the case as confirmed severe acute respiratory syndrome, saying more tests are needed, and says it has no plans yet to issue any warnings against travel to the city-state.

The man, whose name has not been released, worked in two government labs that studied the SARS virus, and probably caught the disease during a visit to one of the labs on Aug 23, Sadasivan said.

Health officials in Singapore confirmed that he visited the National Environment Agency lab on that date. Both labs have since been closed and 35 people who were in contact with the man were quarantined for 10 days.