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Topic: SARS updates (Read 201 times)

east
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SARS updates
« on: Apr 20^th, 2003, 3:48pm »

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SARS suspect may have ridden Toronto commuter train

Canadian Press

http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20030419.wloca0419_1/BNS tory/National

Toronto Ontario Health Minister Tony Clement raised fears on Easter Sunday of more widespread SARS worries in southern Ontario with news that a nurse now listed as a suspected case rode a commuter train.

Mr. Clement told CTV's Question Period that the "potential new outbreak" stems from the possibility that the nurse may have been riding the Toronto-area GO train with other passengers.

"We've identified a potential new outbreak on a particular train at a particular time on a particular configuration of seats," Mr. Clement said as China reported that the SARS epidemic in the country where the illness originated is much more serious than originally thought.

A day after health officials said SARS claimed its 14th victim in Canada a 99-year-old man who died Good Friday Mr. Clement said in a question-and-answer session on CTV that a nurse who took the GO train into and out of Toronto has become "symptomatic."

Mr. Clement stressed that the potential new source of exposure is "very, very local."

He did not give particulars about when the nurse may have been riding the provincially funded transit system which on any given weekday serves hundreds of thousands of commuters in the Toronto region. He also wouldn't say whether she was in isolation as is the practice when someone is suspected to have been exposed to severe acute respiratory syndrome.

Nor did the minister say which trains or routes have been targeted, and on which day.

"We are asking people who were on the train both to and from Toronto fitting that particular train, particular time, particular set of seats to isolate themselves."

Officials with Toronto public health weren't immediately available for comment, while GO Transit officials weren't yet commenting on the situation.

On a holiday weekend billed as critical in the fight against SARS, Ontario reported Saturday that there are 249 probable and suspect cases in the province. The World Health Organization reported 86 new cases Saturday, bringing the total to more than 3,500. As of Saturday, 182 people were reported dead.

As well on Saturday, Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences Centre in Toronto ratched up its level of protection, closing its critical care, cardiovascular intensive care and SARS units for 10 days as a precaution after four staff members began showing symptoms.

The workers, doctors and nurses both, were exposed a week ago during a four-hour intubation a procedure that involves inserting a tube in a patient's airway to facilitate breathing, said Dr. Mary Vearncombe, the hospital's head of infection prevention and control.

Meanwhile, the Chinese government issued a rare admission that the true number of cases in Beijing is almost 10 times higher than originally thought in the capital.

The government said the flu-like illness has killed 12 more people raising the total in China to 79. It also said the number of infections in Beijing has soared from 37 to 346, bringing the total number of cases in China to 1,814.

Struggling to stop the spread of the disease, Chinese officials also cancelled a major week-long holiday in May, when tens of millions of people usually go on vacation.

« Last Edit: Apr 20^th, 2003, 10:05pm by east »

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Re: SARS updates
« Reply #1 on: Apr 20^th, 2003, 10:06pm »

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New SARS case closes ward in New West
Health authorities looking for those who had contact with Royal Columbian nurse

http://www.canada.com/vancouver/story.asp?id=E661C6ED-2AE2-47D5-9F2A-37D 6413C02BC

Saturday, April 19, 2003

Dr. Roland Guasparini reveals that a nurse working at Royal Columbia Hospital is a suspected SARS case.

Fraser Health Authority officials are putting a 59-bed ward at Royal Columbian Hospital into isolation because a second nurse there is suspected of having SARS.

The authority is trying to identify patients, hospital staff and others who may have been in contact with the nurse, the latest B.C. resident suspected to have severe acute respiratory syndrome.

The woman was found to have a suspected case of SARS Thursday afternoon after she told co-workers she was experiencing SARS symptoms. She had already begun her morning shift at the hospital.

She was immediately sent home, where she is in isolation and doing well, according to Dr. Roland Guasparini, the Fraser Health Authority's chief medical health officer.

As a precaution, the health authority is putting the ward where the woman worked into isolation and 35 nurses have been asked to stay home for 10 days. Public health officials will monitor their condition and they will continue to be paid.

Guasparini said the nurse with the suspected case came into contact with a patient with a probable case of SARS in late March. That is the same patient another nurse at the same hospital had contact with before she was diagnosed as a probable case of SARS last Monday.

"She (the suspected case) would have been infectious when she developed symptoms and she worked part of the night shift when she developed the symptoms [April 9] and then she worked a week or so later [April 17]," Guasparini said.

Health authority officials say they attempted to contact the nurse during the two days between the discovery of the probable case Tuesday and her return to work Thursday, but were unable to reach her.

In order for SARS to be contagious, the carrier must be showing symptoms. Guasparini said none of the 13 patients who came in contact with the latest suspected case are showing signs of having the disease.

Still, the Fraser Health Authority says it is being extremely conservative and cautious in treating the latest case.

The 13 patients are being monitored closely -- nine of them remain in the hospital, three have been transferred to other hospitals and one has gone home. Friends and family members who visit the remaining nine patients will be required to wear gowns, masks and goggles.

None of the other patients currently being cared for in that ward will be moved to another part of the hospital and no new patients will be admitted until at least April 27, by which time the disease's 10-day incubation period will be over.

"We are, of course, following the community contacts [of the suspected case], which at this point means the household contacts, and they have put on active daily surveillance. They will be checked twice a day to see if they have developed any symptoms," Guasparini said.

As of Friday, the Canadian SARS case count was 304 probable and suspect cases in six provinces. All the 13 SARS deaths in Canada have taken place in the Toronto area. Internationally, the World Health Organization is reporting more than 3,300 cases and 172 deaths.

"As we've seen elsewhere in the world, this can get out of hand very quickly and I think the expectation from the public is that we do everything we can to prevent the spread of SARS and hope to contain it," Guasparini said.

"I still think with the appropriate containment measures we can control this long enough until we at least have some diagnostic tests that will be more refined."

Speaking before the latest suspected case was announced publicly, Dr. Perry Kendall, B.C.'s chief provincial health officer, said the response of the province's medical system to the SARS crisis has, so far, been "very good."

But some people are upset because Kendall's office has only just issued Internet bulletins about SARS in Chinese, Punjabi and Vietnamese.

The resources are overdue, said Victor Wong, director of the Vancouver Association of Chinese Canadians. He urged people to check daily for updates.

"This is the gateway for thousands of travellers from Asia, the starting point of SARS, to North America every day. It seems we should have immediately been arming these people with information in their first language," said Wong, who had been lobbying for the information to be translated.

Toronto Public Health and the Ontario government have been publishing multilingual Internet bulletins, but they provide only local updates. The Vancouver Coastal Health Authority had been providing links to health sites in Hong Kong, but Wong said it is imperative that people be able to access information about the situation in their own city.

Kendall, said it simply took the province longer to get it done.

Meanwhile, the University of B.C. says it has no plans to impose restrictions on dozens of students from China expected to arrive in Vancouver Monday en route to the University of Regina.

The university suggested Thursday that the students, none of whom are suspected to have SARS, be "quarantined" at UBC, where they are to stay during a visit to Vancouver before being bused to the Saskatchewan capital.

Spokesman Scott Macrae said UBC has no plans to quarantine the students, who will be welcomed and free to move around the city.

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