Hsieh Ying-Hen, Chen Cathy W S, Hsu Sze-Bi
Departmentof Applied Mathematics, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan.
Emerg Infect Dis. 2004 Feb;10(2):201-6. doi: 10.3201/eid1002.030515.
We studied the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in Taiwan, using the daily case-reporting data from May 5 to June 4 to learn how it had spread so rapidly. Our results indicate that most SARS-infected persons had symptoms and were admitted before their infections were reclassified as probable cases. This finding could indicate efficient admission, slow reclassification process, or both. The high percentage of nosocomial infections in Taiwan suggests that infection from hospitalized patients with suspected, but not yet classified, cases is a major factor in the spread of disease. Delays in reclassification also contributed to the problem. Because accurate diagnostic testing for SARS is currently lacking, intervention measures aimed at more efficient diagnosis, isolation of suspected SARS patients, and reclassification procedures could greatly reduce the number of infections in future outbreaks.
我们利用5月5日至6月4日的每日病例报告数据，对台湾严重急性呼吸综合征（SARS）疫情进行了研究，以了解其传播如此迅速的原因。我们的研究结果表明，大多数感染SARS的人出现症状并在其感染被重新归类为疑似病例之前就已入院。这一发现可能表明入院效率高、重新归类过程缓慢，或两者兼而有之。台湾医院感染的高比例表明，来自疑似但尚未归类病例的住院患者的感染是疾病传播的一个主要因素。重新归类的延迟也导致了这一问题。由于目前缺乏针对SARS的准确诊断检测，旨在提高诊断效率、隔离疑似SARS患者以及重新归类程序的干预措施可以大大减少未来疫情中的感染数量。
