Posted on 06/07/2003 6:22:44 AM PDT by MalcolmS
SARS is loosening its stranglehold on Ontario, officials announced yesterday. "The second cluster is tapering off," said Dr. Colin D'Cunha, Ontario's medical officer of health. "But we need to continue to be hyper-vigilant, while heading towards the new normal."
Freedom is a sweet sign of success, too. The number of people in quarantine plummeted, from 5,500 on Tuesday to 1,078 yesterday -- including 91 health-care workers.
3 NEW CASES
Officials announced three new cases, two from an intubation at North York General a week ago that infected health-care workers, along with one patient that was being monitored.
D'Cunha also announced all five cases under investigation at Centenary hospital have been cleared and are not SARS.
The two people in Parry Sound and one nurse in isolation in Ottawa suspected of having the virus are also SARS-free.
Ontario has 67 active probable cases, including 20 people who are in critical condition.
Dr. Andrew Simor, microbiologist at Sunnybrook hospital, said the intubation where two NYGH workers were infected with SARS on May 28 was on a patient who was near death.
Simor said eight people participated in the intubation, and it's still possible more workers could have SARS. They won't be clear until the 10-day incubation period is over on Saturday.
To try to prevent future trouble during the high-risk procedures, Simor said new regulations have been established, including minimizing the number of people doing an intubation, having the most experienced person performing the procedure and wearing Stryker masks to provide extra infection protection.
The Stryker mask and suits are like space suits that cover the head completely. Simor said there is still some risk of infection while taking the suits on and off.
INFECTIOUS TIME
Simor said the intubation -- putting a tube down a patient's throat -- isn't the only infectious time.
Also yesterday, doctors continued work on a procedure to monitor respiratory tract infections so another SARS case isn't missed, leading to another outbreak.
Simor also announced that, unlike the first SARS outbreak, many hospitals were able to continue a large number of procedures and operations without interruption.
A nurse who visited a Toronto SARS-affected hospital came down with SARS-like symptoms, shortly followed by one of her two children. As a result, many people at her work and everyone at her child's daycare and a nearby school were quarantined.
At one point, over 1,000 people in the town of 6,000 were in quarantine!
Several days into the quarantine, tests showed that she was not affected by SARS at all (I guess they positively identified another pathogen) and they let everyone out.
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