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'Atypical pneumonia' is a generic description, and the lack of a new term on March 14 last year to describe a subset of Prince of Wales Hospital patients who seemed to be different from other atypical pneumonia patients made communication difficult.
Secretary for Health, Welfare & Food Dr Yeoh Eng-kiong made this remark after attending today's Legislative Council Select Committee hearing to inquire into the handling of the SARS outbreak by the Government and the Hospital Authority.
He reiterated that, on March 14 last year, he did describe how there was a subset of patients among atypical pneumonia sufferers that seemed to be different from the others, and that was the Prince of Wales Hospital outbreak.
Dr Yeoh also pointed out that 'atypical pneumonia' is a generic description for a group of diseases, and people in the medical sector still have difficulties in defining it.
Public informed of Prince of Wales outbreak
"Atypical pneumonia is not an exact term. It is caused by many many organisms, some of which we already know of and within that there is this new phenomenon which was caused by what we know now is the SARS-coronavirus. So on March 14, I described the situation of pneumonia in Hong Kong," he said.
"But I did describe within atypical pneumonia, there was a subset of patients which seemed to be different from the others. And that was the outbreak that we saw in the Prince of Wales Hospital... So, you see, there was difficulty at that time of communicating when you did not have a name for this new phenomenon."
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