TKU authorities have decided to fumigate the Communication Hall and Chemistry Hall. 39 teachers and students of Departments of Mass Communication and of Information and Communication (DIC) are under 10-day home quarantine until May 14 shortly after knowing that an assistant of Department of Mass Communication (DMC) was diagnosed as a SARS suspect when she was hospitalized at Mackay Memorial Hospital at Tamsui.

The assistant has been to clinics and hospitals on May 2, 5 and 7. She was preliminarily diagnosed as flu and later as a SARS suspect by Mackay Memorial Hospital because her temperature was unstable and restlessly coughed.

According to DMC, the assistant stayed at her office for one hour on May 5. She felt sick and went home to get a rest. Her husband who returned from Mainland China had completed 14-day quarantine in Taoyuan. No symptom could prove that her husband was a SARS suspect.

DMC requested that those who had contacted this assistant should have 10-day home quarantine. The Sanitation Department of Taipei County Government stipulated the regulation. A total of 39 people including Lee Mei-hua, Chair of DMC, Lecturer Chi Hui-chun, Liu Hui-chuan, Chair of DIC, 10 assistants and 29 students including a student from Department of Transportation Management were involved. Volunteers of OSA dispatched foodstuffs daily. The communication hall is temporarily closed; 552 students were notified to stop classes.

Tung Wan, Secretary General of TKU, said that Office of Academic Affairs (OAA) had informed teachers and students who were in class with or had contacted the assistant to halt the class until May 14 after receiving a notice from Mackay Memorial Hospital. Students will return to the class on May 15. Those who were not under home quarantine should go to classes taught by teachers of other departments as usual.

A series of celebration activities marking 20th founding anniversary of DMC to be held at Taipei City Government Hall were cancelled. The exhibition of academic achievement by graduates-to-be of DMC will be held at Mass Communication Hall instead. However, the exhibition was also cancelled two hours after the opening ceremony.

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