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reduce the average onset-to-hospitalization time – for example in resource-poor countries, or if a number of super-spreading events occur in close succession and hospital capacity is temporarily exceeded (Riley).

Quarantine after Discharge

There is little reliable information about the duration of quarantine after discharge. In Singapore, all inpatients who were discharged from a hospital with previous SARS cases were under telephone surveillance for 21 days; all probable SARS inpatients and selected suspect SARS inpatients who recovered and were discharged were on home quarantine for 14 days (MMWR 52; 405-11).

Infection Control in Healthcare Settings

General Measures

Hospital workers remain on the front lines in the global response to SARS. They are at considerable risk of contracting SARS when there is an opportunity for unprotected exposure. In order to protect healthcare workers and to prevent disease dissemination, strict infection control measures and public education are essential (ChanYeung).

In the SARS hospitals, all healthcare workers should have mandatory body temperature recording twice daily (Mukherjee).

In non-SARS hospitals, in order to minimize patient contact and deal with the potential increased workload from the SARS hospital, all elective surgery is cancelled, as are most outpatient clinics. In order to protect themselves, staff are required to wear an N95 mask, gloves and gown when in contact with all patients. Every attempt is made to streamline workflow to minimize the number of staff in contact with a patient and the time spent with a patient. Because of the potential risk of an individual healthcare worker contaminating a whole department of colleagues, medical units have been divided into small teams who do not have any contact with the other team. Some departments have mandated that one team must be at home to ensure that if another team

Kamps and Hoffmann (eds.)