Indian Bride Tests Positive for SARS
Posted on: Monday, 21 April 2003, 06:00 CDT
By JEEJA PUROHIT
PUNE, India (AP) -- An Indian bride was taken to a hospital straight from her wedding ceremony Monday after she and some family members were confirmed as SARS patients, and doctors quarantined the groom, the wedding guests and the priest.
It is the first major occurrence of severe acute respiratory syndrome in India, where the only previous confirmed case was released from hospital in a day.
The bride's 29-year-old brother - India's second confirmed SARS case - tested positive for the illness after traveling to India's Maharashtra state on April 8 from Jakarta via Singapore for the ceremony, said Subhash Salunke, director of medical health services in the state. Salunke had earlier said the man had come from Singapore.
The man had been screened twice for SARS during the journey - in Singapore and on a stopover in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, said P.P.Gaekwad, a health official in the municipal corporation of Pune town, where the wedding was taking place.
The man, a cloth merchant based in the Indonesian capital, admitted himself to a hospital in Pune city in the western Maharashtra state April 17 - four days after he developed symptoms.
He was confirmed Monday as a SARS patient after two tests, and doctors were studying whether he could have spread the disease to anyone because of the delay in reporting the symptoms.
Within hours on Monday, his mother and sister were also confirmed to have the highly contagious respiratory illness. The bride was taken away from the Methodist church in Pune immediately after the ceremony. All were kept in isolation in a hospital.
Salunke said the groom, the priest and approximately 25 guests were being quarantined in private apartments where the guests had been lodged for the wedding.
Pune is about 100 kilometers (60 miles) southeast of Bombay, the state capital and India's financial hub.
No one has died of the disease in India, but Singapore has reported 16 SARS deaths and the disease has been spread previously by air travelers.
Last week, a marine engineer was confirmed as India's first case of SARS, but he was discharged from a hospital in the western Goa state and asked to quarantine himself at home.
The government said Monday that it has asked all airlines to sanitize aircraft coming from SARS-affected nations.
Worldwide, at least 218 people have died of the virus and more than 3,800 are affected, health authorities say.
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Eds: Ramola Talwar Badam in Bombay, India, also contributed to this story.
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