Researcher infected with SARS virus

A medical researcher has tested positive for SARS – Taiwan’s first case since the island was dropped from a global list of infected areas last July, health officials said.

The patient was a 44-year-old senior scientist who has been studying SARS at the National Defence University in Taipei.

“He’s the only one who’s been infected,” Health Minister Chen Chien-jen said at a news conference.

It is the second time a researcher has caught the disease by studying SARS samples in recent months. Singapore reported a similar case in August.

The Taiwanese researcher, who lives in suburban Taipei, went down with SARS after attending a conference in Singapore, but officials said they thought he was exposed to the virus in his lab as early as December 5, and not in Singapore.

“He was in a hurry to get ready for the Singapore conference, and was careless,” said Su Ih-jen of Taiwan’s Centre for Disease Control.

Officials played down the risk of the disease spreading to others. There were no plans for testing of people who travelled on the same planes as the infected man.

Singapore’s Ministry of Health would not say whether there were plans to trace conference delegates.