Posted on 04/07/2003 3:46:19 PM PDT by Heartlander2
Guests at wake need to be checked
Public health officials were worried yesterday a new wave of SARS cases could arise among people who attended a wake last week for a person determined posthumously to have died of SARS.
The decision to classify the April 1 death as SARS-related came after several members of the family came down with the disease. That death brings to nine the number of Canadians who have succumbed to SARS since it was first brought to Canada six weeks ago.
"There are (still) areas, like the funeral home, clearly ... that could cause a further blip" in Ontario's SARS numbers, Dr. James Young, the province's commissioner of public security, said.
A couple suspected of being infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome were removed by paramedics from an Air Canada flight yesterday and rushed to Peter Lougheed Hospital. Officials said the 51-year-old man and 48-year-old woman had arrived from Beijing via Vancouver and were displaying flu-like symptoms.
"These people left China, and flew to Calgary and the woman had symptoms of SARS," said Calgary district fire Chief Ron Stirler. "Because SARS was suspected, they took precautions on the airplane and are taking precautions at the hospital."
As of yesterday, Health Canada was reporting a cumulative total of 217 probable and suspect cases of SARS; 179 of them were in Ontario and 26 in British Columbia.
A wake for the individual was held on April 3 at Highland Funeral Home in Toronto. Anyone who attended needs to go into isolation for 10 days from April 3 and needs to contact public health officials, said Dr. Colin D'Cunha, Ontario's chief medical officer of health.
"There was a possibility -- and a very strong possibility -- of individuals who attended the visitation on the evening of April 3rd for someone to have been exposed in a significant manner and potentially come down with SARS," he said yesterday.
The hospital where the patient died was temporarily closed to new patients on Saturday while officials determined if the case was SARS and if it was, whether significant levels of staff or fellow patients had been exposed to the disease through close contact with the patient. Although hospitals outside the GTA have been advised to resume surgery, Murray Martin, CEO of Hamilton Health Sciences, said the city's largest hospital won't be able to return to normal until they can stop screening everyone who walks through the hospital door.
That screening has cut down on the number of hospital volunteers and is taking up resources. But Martin said he was encouraged that the number of SARS cases aren't skyrocketing and seem to be contained in the GTA.
At St. Peter's hospital, where they care for elderly patients, officials have vowed not to relax their screening until the threat of SARS is completely eliminated. Grant Walsh, CEO of St. Peter's, said his patients are some of the most vulnerable to the illness and he plans to protect them.
Officials with the Correctional Service of Canada began Friday to screen staff, visitors and prisoners -- including parolees returning to halfway houses -- at facilities across the province for the virus.
"It's just a screening instrument to ensure that none of the offenders that come into our centres have been exposed to SARS,'' said Terry Holub, director of the Hamilton Community Correctional Cenre. "In order to protect against the possibility of anyone being affected, we have to take appropriate action.''
Two hospitals in Toronto have been closed since the outbreak began because of high levels of inadvertent exposure of staff, patients and visitors.
In this case, it was determined that wouldn't be necessary. A review of the patient's treatment revealed staff had used good infection control measures, even though they didn't believe the patient had SARS, Young said. A small number of patients may have been exposed, he added, and they are being monitored. "We feel confident there was not exposure either to health-care workers or visitors," Dr. Donald Low, a leading infectious disease expert and member of the containment team, said yesterday from his home.
Low is in isolation until tomorrow, having been exposed to someone who has SARS. He remains in good health.
While the treatment of this patient suggests health-care workers are getting more adept at protecting themselves from exposure to SARS, the case raises a troubling pattern that is coming into focus for doctors treating people with the disease. Elderly patients, especially those with pre-existing medical conditions, don't necessarily suffer from the high fever that has been assumed to be a key feature of SARS. That fact makes it even more difficult for doctors -- already hamstrung by the lack of a diagnostic test for SARS -- to spot and isolate all patients suffering from the highly contagious disease.
Nasty, but an effective, if primitive means of bio-warfare.
Anybody have a clue as to why this may be?
It sounds as if the relatives who contracted it from the deceased were the possible carriers.
If this SARS Coronavirus can survive an appropriate formaldehyde bath, we're all in serious trouble.
Secondly, they've found evidence of two pathogens working in conjunction (however, not necessarily Chlamydia):
SARS a combination of bacteria and virus
China: SARS May Be Linked to Chlamydia-Like Agent
If this were the case, one would have to have a defense against both pathogens. IMO, this is why the virus is more difficult for the body to battle. Could it be that the elderly patients have had more exposure to certain viruses in their lifetime, therefore their immuno-response is different?
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