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21 May 2003: Joint Press Release of the Ministry of Health and WHO-Cambodia

Announcement: SARS-No time for complacency

The Ministry of Health of the Kingdom of Cambodia and the Office of the World Health Organization (WHO) Representative in Cambodia would like to announce to the public that severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in Cambodia is not neglected.

A number of outbreaks of SARS have been reported in countries in East and South-East Asia. To date, there has been no confirmed case of SARS in Cambodia. However, the Ministry of Health and its technical support agencies, like WHO and others, take this threat and the global alert very seriously, and have devoted all their effort and resources for putting in place all  possible measures needed to actively detect and control this life-threatening disease.

As the result of the joint effort, the 13th suspected case of SARS has been identified. He is a Cambodian citizen studying in Guangdong province, hot spot of SARS, China. He felt sick and has had fever (undocumented) since May 14 and he returned to Phnom Penh via Guangzhou on May 16 by China Airline, flight CZ-323. He arrived in Phnom Penh at 14:10. Currently, even though he is in recovery stage, and the fever stopped, he needs to be under thorough medical examination and monitoring for several days in a designated and specially arranged health facility in order to confirm that he is free of SARS, and if he weren't, to prevent the spread of virus to the others and the contact tracing procedure will be immediately implemented.

The public will be regularly informed about the situation of SARS in Cambodia.