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Canadian testing for the coronavirus believed to cause SARS has turned up a puzzling, possibly troubling finding: a significant proportion of people who weren't diagnosed with SARS tested positive for the virus

"That may mean there's a fair bit of mild illness caused by this coronavirus that we're not recognizing. And I think it will mean that it will be much harder to control with quarantine and isolation if the coronavirus is the whole story."
That said, Plummer admitted that at this point there is no evidence these asymptomatic people - if they did have a mild case of SARS - could pass the virus to others who might then become sick with the disease.
"Right now the evidence is, as far as we know, that they're not. There doesn't seem to be any secondary transmission. But our information is still pretty sketchy. So we are actively looking into that question. It is a concern."

HONG KONG
Local health officials said Wednesday night that a dozen patients who had seemed to recover from SARS became ill again after leaving the hospital.
In some cases, the illness returned more than two weeks after discharge, according to a medical expert in Hong Kong who refused to be quoted by name. It is not clear whether the patients contracted the infection a second time, or simply became ill with the same virus after seeming to recover.

The relapses may mean that patients can still transmit severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, even when they are believed to be no longer infectious. If so, that raises the possibility that transmission might recur in countries where officials have said the outbreak is over.
Less ominous, the relapses could be a complication of treatment, perhaps from the use of steroids that so suppressed the patients' immune system that they did not have a chance to develop a strong enough immune defense against SARS.

As of today, a cumulative total of 5865 probable cases with 391 deaths have been reported from 27 countries. This represents an increase of 212 additional cases and 19 deaths when compared with yesterday. The deaths occurred in China (11), Hong Kong (5), Taiwan (2), and Singapore (1). Poland reported its first case today.

The United Kingdom and the United States of America have been removed from the list of areas with recent local transmission. In both countries, the last instance of local transmission occurred more than 20 days ago. Tianjin, China and Ulaanbaatar City, Mongolia, were added to the list.