阿波罗新闻网编者注：在医疗条件和服务发达的美国，都出现这种情形。在中国大陆，如流感爆发，情况不堪设想。即便当局有这种检验技术，给谁提供，是个问题。
华尔街日报记者机场染流感 检测却碰壁
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联合报
华尔街日报的联合国特派记者罗里亚（Joe Lauria）上周因故被困在芝加哥欧海尔机场数小时，并因此感染流感后，一直想搞清楚自己是否罹患H1N1新流感，但即使他因病重在纽约住院隔离了4天，仍是未能如愿接受新流感检测，令他挫折不已，也显示美国因流感病患太多卫生单位措手不及的乱象。
罗里亚从芝加哥返回纽约48小时后，开端出现肌肉酸痛、咳嗽、打冷颤、高烧不退症状。他的病情于4月27日严重恶化，于是他打电话给纽约协助专线311，问一个简单问题：他可到何处做新流感检验？
没想到他到处碰壁。311的接线生请他打纽约州卫生局热线，对方则说先与家庭医师连系再说。因为是假日，他未找到家庭医师，因此他打给一个急诊室问是否能做新流感检测，护士却是要他打311专线，罗里亚再打311专线，坚持要找地方做检验，他才恍然大悟，根本没地方可做检验。
罗里亚于是跑到大医院就医，医院得知他的情况，立即将他隔离，但表示无法为他做新流感检验，将以做A型流感检验方式，替他排除感染新流感的可能。纽约市传染病局监督主管魏斯说，因资源不足，当局因此无法让所有人接受检验。
Want to Know if You Have Swine Flu? You May Have to Wait.
By Sarah Rubenstein
With regular tallying of new cases of A/H1N1 swine flu — as of yesterday it had sickened 898 people around the world — you might think it’s pretty easy to find out if whatever you’ve come down with really is that strain of the flu.
Not necessarily. Just ask Joe Lauria (pictured), a correspondent who covers the United Nations for the WSJ. He had muscle aches, a cough, chills and a 102-degree fever two days after being stuck for hours in an airport. So he tried to find out where he could be tested for swine flu. He called the city’s 311 helpline, which told him to call the state health-department hotline, which told him to call his doctor, whose office was closed. Then he called an emergency room, which told him to call the city’s information line. You get the idea.
Lauria eventually ended up at Montefiore Medical Center, where he was put into isolation and recovered. But he still doesn’t know if he had swine flu. Read his full account here.
New York’s capacity to test for swine flu may improve soon, however. The New York Times reports that the city’s semi-secret biothreat response testing lab early this week will be able to determine if someone has swine flu within five and a half hours. Up to now, samples have had to be flown to the CDC in Atlanta for testing to be done. The CDC has sent New York and some other health departments the ingredients to conclusively test for the flu, NYT says.
Correction: An earlier version of this post incorrectly said that the CDC in Atlanta was the only place in the world where testing to determine swine flu was being done before other sites were added recently. Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg was conducting such tests before the new sites were added.
Photo: Corinna Barnard
