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 But the January sales meeting in a luxury Singapore hotel was far
from auspicious.
Someone seated in the room, or in the vicinity of the hotel that is
renowned for its central location and a racy nightclub in the
basement, was about to take coronavirus global.
Three weeks later, global health authorities are still scrambling to
work out who carried the disease into the mundane meeting of a firm
selling gas meters, which then spread to five countries from South
Korea to Spain, infecting over a dozen people.
Experts say finding this so-called "patient zero" is critical for
tracing all those potentially exposed to infection and containing
the outbreak, but as time passes, the harder it becomes.
"We do feel uncomfortable obviously when we diagnose a patient with
the illness and we can't work out where it came from...the
containment activities are less effective," said Dale Fisher, chair
of the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network coordinated by the
World Health Organisation.
Authorities initially hinted at Chinese delegates, which included
someone from Wuhan - the Chinese city at the epicentre of the virus
that has killed over 1,350 people. But a Servomex spokesperson told
Reuters its Chinese delegates had not tested positive.
Fisher and other experts have compared the Singapore meeting to
another so-called "super-spreading" incident at a Hong Kong hotel in
2003 where a sick Chinese doctor spread Severe Acute Respiratory
Syndrome around the world.
The WHO has opened an investigation into the Singapore incident, but
said its "way too early" to tell if it is a super-spreading event.
SCARY AND SOBERING
It was more than a week after the meeting - which according to a
company e-mail included Servomex's leadership team and global sales
staff - that the first case surfaced in Malaysia.
The incubation period for the disease is up to 14 days and people
may be able to infect others before symptoms appear.
The firm said it immediately adopted "extensive measures" to contain
the virus and protect employees and the wider community. Those
included self-isolation for all 109 attendees, of whom 94 were from
overseas and had left Singapore.
But the virus kept spreading.
Two South Korean delegates fell sick after sharing a buffet meal
with the Malaysian, who also passed the infection to his sister and
mother-in-law. Three of the firm's Singapore attendees also tested
positive.
Then cases started appearing in Europe.
An infected British delegate had headed from the conference to a
French ski resort, where another five people fell ill. Another
linked case then emerged in Spain, and when the Briton returned to
his home town in the south of England the virus spread further.
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"It feels really scary that one minute it's a story in China... and
then the next minute it is literally on our doorstep," said Natalie
Brown, whose children went to the same school as the British
carrier. The school said in a letter that two people at the school
had been isolated.
"It's scary and sobering how quickly it seems to have spread," said
Brown.
TIME RUNNING OUT
Back in Singapore, authorities were battling to keep track of new
cases of local transmissions, many unlinked to previous cases.
Management at the hotel - the Grand Hyatt Singapore - said they had
cleaned extensively and were monitoring staff and guests for
infection but did not know "how, where or when" conference attendees
were infected. The lion dancers, who posted photos of the event on
Facebook, said they were virus free.
"Everyone assumes it was a delegate but it could have been a
cleaner, it could have been a waiter," said Paul Tambyah, an
infectious diseases expert at National University Singapore. He
added it was "very important" to find "patient zero" to establish
other possible "chains of transmission".
But time may be running out.
Singapore health ministry's Kenneth Mak said the government will
continue to try and identify the initial carrier until the outbreak
ends, but as days pass it will get harder.
"We might never be able to tell who that first patient is," Mak
said.
Meanwhile, the fallout from the conference continues to sow
trepidation weeks after the event and thousands of miles away.
Reuters visited Servomex's offices in the suburbs of South Korea's
capital, Seoul. It was closed and dark inside, and a building guard
told Reuters employees were working from home.
A notice posted by building management stated a coronavirus patient
had entered the complex, while several young women could be
overheard in a nearby elevator discussing whether it had been used
by the infected person.
"Do you think the patient would have gotten on this elevator or the
other one?" one said.
(Reporting by John Geddie, Joe Brock and Keith Zhai in Singapore,
Sangmi Cha and Josh Smith in Seoul, Kate Holton in London, and
Joseph Sipalan in Kuala Lumpur; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
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