Medpundit

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Thursday, May 29, 2003

SARS Testing: The Koch Institute in Germany has come up with a new SARS blood test that detects antibodies to the virus. It isn't clear if it will be better at diagnosing the disease than the current tests, since according to the CDC, SARS can be present before antibodies show up in the blood stream. Others have already introduced tests for the virus, but they must not be very accurate since health officials still classify people as "suspect" or "probable" cases rather than making definitive diagnoses, and the final diagnosis seems to pivot on ruling out everything else.

A good diagnostic test would help eliminate Canada’s definition dilemma:

Canadian health officials found themselves grappling Wednesday with concerns that they only define more severe SARS cases as "probable," thus making their outbreak seem smaller than it is.

The guidelines doctors use to define each SARS case are critical, because lab tests for severe acute respiratory syndrome have drawbacks and aren't widely available.

The World Health Organization advised Canadian officials Wednesday to adopt the same definition used globally, so that Canadian doctors would be less likely to overlook cases like the one that spawned the current outbreak.

posted by Sydney on 5/29/2003 07:46:00 PM 0 comments

Thursday, May 29, 2003

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