Posted on 03/16/2003 6:28:42 PM PST by sytole
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Toronto — As infectious disease experts around the globe scramble to find the cause of a mysterious and deadly pneumonia, the number of confirmed and suspected cases in Canada rose to 10, public health officials said Sunday.
One of two suspected cases is a doctor who treated infected members of a family that was the source of the bulk of the Canadian cases.
"My understanding is that she is the family physician who looked after a number of the family members," said Dr. Andrew Simor, head of microbiology at Toronto's Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences Centre.
That means it will be a HUGE EPIDEMIC in countries that have SOCIALIZED MEDICINE!
By HELEN BRANSWELL
Canadian Press
Toronto — As infectious disease experts around the globe scramble to find the cause of a mysterious and deadly pneumonia, the number of confirmed and suspected cases in Canada rose to 10, public health officials said Sunday.
One of two suspected cases is a doctor who treated infected members of a family that was the source of the bulk of the Canadian cases.
"My understanding is that she is the family physician who looked after a number of the family members," said Dr. Andrew Simor, head of microbiology at Toronto's Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences Centre.
In Asia, where the mystery illness has hit hardest, the majority of cases have been health care workers who treated patients with the condition.
There have been eight confirmed cases of the atypical pneumonia that has been dubbed — for lack of a more precise term — severe acute respiratory syndrome or SARS, Health Canada reported.
Six of those cases occurred in Ontario and two in British Columbia. Two of the Ontario patients have died, bringing to nine the worldwide death toll so far.
In addition, public health officers in Toronto revealed that two more people are in isolation rooms in city hospitals and are being treated as suspected cases of the strange ailment which has set off global alarm bells.
All the suspected and confirmed cases are people who have either travelled recently to Southeast Asia, where the virus apparently originated, or who have been in close contact with people who got sick after travelling to that region.
Patients are being treated with heavy doses of broad-spectrum antibiotics and antiviral drugs, which appear to be working.
"Today we had, thankfully, good news that everybody is improving. They're all in stable condition," said Dr. Bonnie Henry, an associate medical officer of health for Toronto. "They're basically improving and getting better."
That fact, plus growing evidence that the illness is transmitted only via close contact with an infected person, is leading public health officials to urge the public not to become unduly alarmed.
It's believed the illness is transmitted by droplets that are sneezed or coughed by an infected person. Gravity helps fight the spread of such diseases; airborne diseases such as chickenpox are significantly more infectious, experts say.
"I would say there's no reason to panic," said Dr. Barbara Yaffe, another associate medical officer of health for Toronto.
"What we are doing is focusing on people who may have been close contacts with known cases, or travelled to the regions that have been affected and come down with very specific symptoms."
Those symptoms include a high fever — over 38 C — as well as a dry cough, shortness of breath and difficulty breathing.
Anyone who has recently been to Hong Kong — or has been in contact with a person who has been to the region and is experiencing such symptoms — should see their doctor as quickly as possible, said Health Canada spokesman Andrew Swift.
Laboratories around the globe — including the national microbiology lab in Winnipeg — were working throughout the weekend trying to isolate the bug behind SARS.
But experts are still stumped whether the culprit is a virus or a bacterium, whether it's a variation of something seen before or an entirely new ailment in humans.
Infectious disease experts who have been predicting for some time that the world is overdue for an influenza pandemic are especially concerned.
Several times a century influenza will mutate into a highly virulent form that sweeps the world, killing millions in its wake. A prime example is the Spanish flu of 1918. The last pandemic was in 1968-69.
"The reality is, this is exactly the way pandemic influenza would present. Just like this," Dr. Simor said. He noted, however, that scientists would expect that if this bug were influenza, existing tests should have shown that by now.
"Having said that, it is possible that this is a totally brand new and very different strain of influenza virus that will be harder to detect and recognize.
"I think it's unlikely. But it's not impossible."
To date, labs have been unable to grow the bug responsible for SARS in culture. That frustrating and puzzling fact is hampering efforts to identify it. But it gives experts like Dr. Mary Vearncombe some cause for hope.
If terrorism were behind the outbreak — if agents like anthrax or plague, for instance, were the source of the atypical pneumonias — labs would have been able to determine that by now, said Dr. Vearncombe, head of infection prevention and control at Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences Centre, where two of the patients are being treated.
"We would have grown it," she said.
As international cases of the illness multiply, the World Health Organization took the unusual step Saturday of issuing an emergency advisory to warn would-be travellers of the illness. WHO director general Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland called SARS "a worldwide health threat."
In addition to Canada, cases have been reported in China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
Health Canada was working Sunday to update a travel advisory first issued Friday. However, the department is not currently urging people to avoid travel to the Southeast Asia.
"We're not recommending restricting travel at this point," Mr. Swift said.
But Dr. Vearncombe said she would not visit the region at the moment.
"If I were planning a trip there, personally I wouldn't go," she said. "Mainland China? I wouldn't, personally."
Health Canada is also developing materials to distribute to air passengers travelling directly to or from Hong Kong. Swift said the department's priority is to target passengers to and from Hong Kong, "really just because it's trying to contact the populations that would be most likely at risk."
U.S. officials are already distributing a warning card to travellers arriving in the United States from destinations throughout the affected areas of Asia.
Good luck!
While that is somewhat reassuring, I'm not sure how that's any different than what was reported on Friday. Patients seem to show a gradual recovery, and then relapse, as if some secondary effect kicks in.
When we can identify this thing, that will be great news. We can't even find it yet. And when we start having reports of fully-recovered patients, that will be the best news.
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