Visitors and patients wear face masks at the Taipei Municipal Ho Ping Hospital, a designated hospital for SARS patients, December 17, 2003. Taiwan's health authorities said on Wednesday a 44-year-old SARS researcher at a military hospital had tested positive for the virus. This is the island's first case since it was dropped from a global list of SARS-infected areas in July.

A visitor to Taipei's Hoping Hospital waits in the admittance lobby where a man infected with SARS was brought earlier in the morning, Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2003. [AP]

Su Ih-jen, Director of Taiwan's Centre for Disease Control, talks on a phone in Taipei during a news conference about a SARS patient in Taipei on December 17, 2003. [Reuters]