SARS STOCKS

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500 quarantined in latest SARS scare
Last Updated Sun, 25 May 2003 0:26:35
TORONTO - At least 500 people in Toronto have been quarantined as a precaution while health officials investigate a few dozen possible new cases of SARS.


INDEPTH: SARS: Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome

Public health authorities confirmed Saturday that they're looking at up to 33 new infections, but stressed that it's still unclear if any of those people actually have severe acute respiratory syndrome.
Ontario's chief medical officer, Dr. Colin D'Cunha, said the recent deaths of two elderly patients have raised concerns that some people may have been exposed to an undiagnosed case of SARS at one or more hospitals.


Dr. Colin D'Cunha


But there has been no sudden surge in the number of new cases, he told reporters. Most of the 33 people now under investigation have hospital charts going back several weeks. The records need to be reviewed.

It will take a few days before officials decide whether to add any of the 33 people to the list of probable cases of SARS. In the meantime, doctors are assuming the patients have the illness.

"I'm not going to let the semantics stop us from doing the correct public-health thing," D'Cunha told reporters. "We're very keen to wrestle this one down to the ground."

Anyone who visited North York General Hospital between May 13 and 23 or St. John's Rehabilitation Hospital between May 9 and 20 has been asked to go into quarantine. People who were at the same hospitals from late April to early May are also being asked to contact public health officials if they have any SARS-like symptoms. The number is 1-888-668-4636.

Hospitals raise their guard again

Thousands have telephoned Toronto's SARS hotlines since word of a possible new outbreak became public a few days ago. So far, about 500 people have gone into quarantine, officials said Saturday.


Dr. Donald Low


If there has been a new outbreak of SARS, there's no evidence it has spread from health-care centres to the general community, said Dr. Donald Low, chief microbiologist at Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital.

"This is not a disease that does well in the community because it really isn't that transmissible," according to Low, one of the country's leading experts on infectious diseases. He has been a member of the team fighting to contain the infection in Toronto since the first case appeared in March.

For SARS to spread easily, Low said, it requires contact in confined settings - for instance, between sick people and relatives or between patients and health-care workers.

To reduce the risk of transmission, hospitals in Toronto have resumed careful screening of visitors. One facility, St. Michael's Hospital, closed its neurosurgery and neurotrauma units to new patients Saturday after being told that a person who may have had SARS was treated there without being isolated.


FROM MAY 24, 2003: No SARS advisory against Toronto: WHO
The World Health Organization says it's monitoring developments in Toronto closely, but has not decided whether to reissue a travel advisory. On Friday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reissued a travel alert. It does not discourage people from visiting Canada's largest city, but recommends travellers take some precautions.



Written by CBC News Online staff