Mysterious illness sickens American, shuts down French hospital in Vn
HANOI - A French hospital in Vietnam has shut down after an American patient arrived with flu-like symptoms that left him in critical condition and infected 26 hospital workers, officials said Wednesday.
The Hanoi French Hospital stopped accepting patients on Tuesday, and emergencies were diverted to other medical facilities.
The 48-year-old American businessman was evacuated to a Hong Kong hospital where he remains in critical condition from a severe case of pneumonia, said Dick Thompson, a spokesman for the World Health Organization in Geneva.
Twenty-six hospital workers in Hanoi also contracted the illness but none has been evacuated, Thompson said. Many of the patients complained of headaches, muscle aches, sore throats and fevers.
Preliminary tests showed that the respiratory illness was not related to a fatal bird flu that killed a man in Hong Kong last month and sickened his son.
In Hong Kong, 26 staff members at the Prince of Wales Hospital also were treated for fevers and respiratory infections, including 10 who remained hospitalized Wednesday with "atypical pneumonia," a hospital official there said.
In mid February, the Chinese government reported 305 cases of atypical pneumonia, with five deaths, in Guangdong province near Hong Kong, a World Health Organization said in a warning issued Wednesday.
"Right now, there are no cases outside of hospitals," Thompson said.
The American arrived in Hanoi late last month from his home in Shanghai. He passed through Hong Kong on his way to Vietnam, but Thompson said no direct link between the two regions has been established. More tests are being run to determine what caused the mysterious illness.
"We are looking very closely at the relationship between the outbreaks," he said. "What does seem to be similar is that those at greatest risk are hospital workers."
It was unclear when the Hanoi hospital would reopen.
"All precautions have been taken," said Lucien Blanchard, general manager of the hospital. "It's a matter of safety because we don't know."
The World Health Organization and Vietnam's Ministry of Health are investigating the illness.
The private hospital opened in January 2000 and employs about 100 people.
By Margie Mason - The Associated Press - March 12, 2003.
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