A day after an American was admitted to a Mumbai hospital on fears of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) infection, another suspected case was reported in Hyderabad today. A 45-year-old businessman, Raphael Anthony, a native of Kottayam in Kerala, who was returning home from Australia by Air-India’s Singapore-Hyderabad-Mumbai flight, was offloaded at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad after he complained of headache, fever, profuse sweating and cough, all symptoms of SARS virus. He was immediately isolated from other passengers and moved to the Government General and Chest Hospital by a team of doctors led by Dr B Balraj, Prof of Medicine in the Osmania Hospital. Admitting that there were no facilities available in Hyderabad for conducting SARS tests, Health Minister K Siva Prasada Rao said that the samples of blood and sputum would be sent to the Pune-based National Institute of Virology and also to the National Institute of Communicable Diseases to confirm whether Anthony was affected by the atypical pneumonia. ‘‘The results are expected within four to five days,’’ he told The Indian Express. Speaking to reporters before being moved to the hospital, Anthony, who runs a departmental store in Papua New Guinea, said that he was suffering from the infection since four days. He realised that it could be SARS virus only after he boarded the aircraft at Singapore where the crew members were making announcements about the virus. ‘‘As soon as the flight reached Hyderabad around 4.45 pm, I reported the matter to the airport authorities,’’ he said. The flight crew decided against flying the aircraft to Mumbai till it was fumigated and disinfected thoroughly. Due to this, all 34 Mumbai-bound passengers were stranded at the airport. Meanwhile, in Mumbai, where 23-year-old American photographer Rebecca Raleigh was admitted to the Kasturba Hospital yesterday, SARS infection has neither been confirmed nor denied. Authorities are also trying to collect information about the whereabouts of a friend of her’s, who is reportedly in Agra now. The officials did not say a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the possibility of the first case in the country. However the briefing was full of contradictions. On the one hand, the officials said preliminary investigations indicated that she is ‘‘unlikely’’ to develop pneumonia and is doing fine but would not rule out the disease till confirmatory tests suggested so. ‘‘She just has the upper respiratory infection, X-rays have confirmed that no pnuemonia patches were found but we still are waiting for the confirmatory tests,’’ said Dr SP Agarwal, Director General Health Services. ‘‘The girl had a congested throat, was a smoker and exhibited change of voice,’’ said he. Asked why they are not ruling out SARS Dr Agarwal said,‘‘ Sixty per cent chances have been ruled out but there still is a forty per cent chance. Blood samples of Raleigh have been collected and sent to National Institute of Virology. ‘‘The Polymerase Chain Reaction tests can confirm the disease by testing for the mutated Corona virus. The tests would take 24 hours,’’ said Dr N.K.Ganguly, Director-General, ICMR.
