Singapore unveiling Sars diagnostic test this week

2.45pm

Singapore this week plans to begin using a locally made three-hour diagnostic test for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars), the Straits Times newspaper said today.

Developed by the government-run Genome Institute of Singapore, the test may be sensitive enough to detect the virus in its early stages before a person develops symptoms such as high fever and a dry cough, the pro-government newspaper said.

"The test has been able to pick up clearly the virus in the blood," Dr Ren Ee Chee, deputy director of the institute, was quoted by the newspaper as saying.

The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States is working to license and distribute a quick test for the virus, so doctors can tell which patients have Sars as opposed to some other form of pneumonia.

On Monday, a German company, Hamburg-based Artus GmbH, said it was distributing a quick "real-time" test that can detect the virus by looking for its genetic signature.

Ren said the Singapore test was in its final stage of completion.

US and Canadian scientists said this week they had independently mapped the genome of the virus blamed for causing SARS and had come up with similar results.

They said it was a breakthrough in attempts to identify and control the virus, which has been carried by air travellers to about 20 countries in the past six weeks, killing more than 140 people and infecting more than 3300.

The Straits Times said Singapore scientists expected to unravel within a week the genetic code for Sars, which has infected 162 people in Singapore and killed at least 11. Another 86 people are suspected of having contracted Sars in Singapore.

- REUTERS