Official defends 10-day SARS quarantine

CBC News ^ | , 07 Jun 2003

[CathyRyan]

TORONTO - A leading Ontario health official is defending the length of the quarantine for SARS, after suggestions that 10 days may not be long enough.

• INDEPTH: SARS: Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome "There's still a consensus in the scientific community and public health community that 10 days is the period to put people into quarantine," Dr. Colin D'Cunha, Ontario's commissioner of public health, told CBC Newsworld.

Some people are questioning the current quarantine period after a student doctor developed SARS-like symptoms 12 days after being exposed to the virus.

• FROM JUNE 6, 2003: SARS scare at Toronto obstetrics unit Sixty people were placed under quarantine after being exposed to him Wednesday, including mothers and their newborns.

Longer incubation periods

There has also been anecdotal evidence out of Asia that people have developed SARS up to 15 days after being exposed to the virus.

D'Cunha said in Ontario, only about two of the more than 350 suspect and probable cases would have seen symptoms develop outside the 10-day period. "That will lead us to examine exactly when the first symptoms started in these two individuals."

There isn't much to be gained by extending the quarantine period because it's already extremely difficult to get compliance now, he said.

Patients coming out of quarantine are asked to continue monitoring themselves for potential SARS symptoms for several days after their quarantine period has ended, he said.

Dr. David Butler-Jones, a member of the national advisory board on SARS and public health, said most diseases have normal incubation periods, but there will be occasional exceptions.

Malaria usually develops within two weeks after a person becomes infected, but some individuals don't develop it until months later.

Asked when people would know SARS has been beaten, Butler-Jones said it would be several months after the last case in the world is resolved.