SINGAPORE, Sept 9: Singapore health officials on Tuesday declared a laboratory researcher positive for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and more than 50 people went into quarantine in the city-state despite signs that it was a single isolated case.

The announcement shattered Asia’s hopes of remaining free from Sars, and came about two months after the epidemic was declared under control by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Governments in the region expressed concern but were confident that they are now much better prepared to confront a resurgence of the Sars virus, for which there remains no cure.

Acting Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan said “it appears to be a single isolated case” and investigations were going on to establish how the 27-year-old Singaporean man studying for his doctorate got infected.

“I don’t think it is a repeat of the crisis,” Khaw told a news conference, referring to the panic-stricken period between March and May when the epidemic peaked.

Sars infected more than 8,000 people and killed over 900 victims worldwide, most of them in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore. Canada was the worst-hit country outside Asia.

The new Singapore patient, now held in isolation at the government-run Communicable Disease Centre, had been working on the West Nile virus at a laboratory in the National University of Singapore.—AFP