Nine more people — two doctors and seven para-medics quarantined for the past 10 days at Siddharth Hospital in the city — have tested positive in preliminary medical tests for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).Stanley D’silva, the first to report positive for SARS in Pune, and his family were treated initially for SARS at Siddharth.Experts from the National Institute of Virology (NIV) on Wednesday confirmed the presence of corona virus in the blood of all nine hospital staff, State Health Minister Digvijay Khanvilkar told the media. The results of the second round of tests were still awaited, he said.State Health Department Director General Dr Subhash Salunkhe, however, said there was no clinical case of SARS in Pune. ‘‘All the persons tested positive have the virus in their blood. But they all are healthy, show no symptoms of any ailment and are unlikely to spread the disease,’’ he said.State health officials are also awaiting reports of the preliminary medical tests of another 10 who were quarantined at Siddharth hospital and a software engineer who was admitted last week to the Sassoon Hospital after he complained of fever and cough on return from Beijing.Salunkhe refused to identify the patients to avoid the social stigma SARS has begun carrying. ‘‘There are two doctors among the nine new SARS positive patients,’’ he said.Caught in a vortex of suspense, tension and fear of being ostracised socially, staffers of the hospital could only vent their anger and frustration against State health authorities for neglecting them totally ever since the D’silvas were shifted to the Naidu Hospital on April 22.‘‘We were told our blood sample report will be sent either on Monday or latest by Tuesday. But we are shocked to know through the media that nine of us have tested positive even though the report is still not in front of us,’’ said a matron who did not wish to be named.A female attendant said her husband had threatened her with divorce if she did not return home soon. ‘‘As if the trauma during the last 10 days was not enough, now the news that some of us have contracted the virus will leave me nowhere,’’ she sobbed.Yet another attendant apprehended that his neighbours had already started speculating that something was wrong with him because of the extended quarantine period. ‘‘We were first supposed to be released on Wednesday. Now this report will cut me off from normal life,’’ he says. Nurses at the hospital complained that health officials never provided the special masks promised from Delhi. ‘‘They did not take care of us in any way,’’ the staffers say in unison. ‘‘My goodwill is almost zero now,’’ concedes Dr Vijay Sethiya, managing director of the hospital.His hospital has been shut since April 22 and he will now have to wait until May 6 to move freely.
