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 Support The DrudgeReport; Visit Our Advertisers  Temperature checks to start for travellers from SARS-hit areas Mon Apr 06 2003 01:01:21 ET Singapore (dpa) - All passengers flying into Singapore from SARS-hit countries will have their temperatures taken at Changi Airport as part of heightened precautions unveiled on Monday while 80 patients were transferred out of the largest hospital. The next step the city-state is contemplating is checking the temperatures of departing passengers. With the total number of people with the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) reaching 106, the head of a Cabinet-level task force said the eight-member body ;will look ahead and give directions on the measures to take''. The ;objective is to get life to return to normalcy as soon as possible'', said Minister for Home Affairs Wong Kan Seng. Six people have died in Singapore out of a worldwide death toll nearing 100. The task force was set up Sunday by Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong. Should the need arise, Goh said he is prepared to have checks of the temperatures of all 50,000 people who cross the Causeway from Malaysia daily. The task force is taking ;a comprehensive look at the impact of SARS on every aspect of the economy and society'', Wong said in a statement. ;Scenarios and plans are being developed for many sectors'' including transport, government, business, tourism, and education, he added. Manpower for the beefed up checks at the airport will come from hiring unemployed people and training them, Goh told journalists. They will be supervised by nurses. Goh said he also cancelled his trip to China to meet the new leaders on doctors' advice. The areas the Health Ministry has advised people to avoid include Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Hanoi and Toronto. The visit was to have taken place after his three-day trip to India. Goh departed on Monday. As a precaution, 80 patients at Singapore General Hospital (SGH), the largest here, were being moved to Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH), the health ministry said. To look after them, 91 SGH staff from the two affected wards were also moving to TTSH. The latest three people to be diagnosed with SARS included an SGH doctor. As part of the strategy to keep the lethal disease from spreading, TTSH was initially set aside as the only facility to treat the SARS patients. Apart from the doctor, 16 SGH staff members are suspected of having SARS and another six are under observation. All worked in the same two wards. Doctors suspect the source is an SGH patient who had earlier been admitted to TTSH. The patient, a man in his 60s, had gastrointestinal bleeding, a kidney abscess and a fever from a bacterial infection, not the expected symptoms of SARS. The 600,000 pupils from primary schools through junior colleges who were due to return on Monday after a 10-day shutdown will not be coming back until April 16. The reopening of secondary schools was postponed until April 14 and junior colleges April 9. END |
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