A hospital outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome in Guangzhou,China

<正> Objective To describe a hospital outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and summarize its clinical features and therapeutic approaches.Methods The outbreak started with a SARS patient from the community, and a total of 96 people (76 women and 20 men, mean age (29. 5±10. 3) years, 93. 8% of whom were health care workers) who had exposure to this source patient became infected in a short time. Clinical data in this cohort were collected prospectively as they were identified.Results (1) The incubation period ranged from 1 to 20 (mean: 5. 9±3. 5) days. The duration of hospitalization was (17. 2±8. 0) days. (2) The initial temperature was (38. 3±0. 6)℃, while the highest was (39. 2 ±0. 6)℃( P<0. 001), with fever duration of (9. 0±4. 2) days. (3) Other most common symptoms included fatigue (93. 8%), cough (85. 4%), mild sputum production (66. 7%), chills (55.2%), headache (39.6%), general malaise (35.4%) and myalgia (21.9%). (4) The radiographic changes were predominantly bilateral in th