CDC Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) Site Newly Updated March 16, 2003

Centers For Disease Control ^ | March 16, 2003

[Timesink]

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)

Find Your City, County, or State Health Officers
Directories, contacts, hotlines, search features. On StatePublicHealth.org (ASTHO) site.

CDC Updates

• Press Release: CDC issues health alert about atypical pneumonia (March 15, 2003)
  In response to reports of increasing numbers of cases of an atypical pneumonia that WHO has called severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), CDC has announced several steps to alert U.S. health authorities at local & state levels...
  
  
• Media Advisory: CDC's Response to Atypical Pneumonia in Southeast Asia and Canada (March 15, 2003)
  Transcript from telebriefing
  
  
• Health Alert Notice (March 15, 2003)
  For international travelers arriving in or returning to the USA from Hong Kong & Guandong Province in the People's Republic of China & from Hanoi, Vietnam.
  
  
• Interim Travel Advisory: Acute respiratory syndrome, multi-country outbreak (March 15, 2003)
  Persons planning elective or nonessential travel to areas affected by the outbreak may wish to postpone their trips until further notice.
  
  
• Travelers' Health Notice: Acute respiratory syndrome, Hong Kong SAR, Viet Nam, China (March 13, 2003)
  Information on reports of outbreaks of a severe form of pneumonia in Hong Kong, Vietnam, & Guangdong, a province in southern China.
  

CDC Guidelines and Recommendations

Healthcare Providers

• CDC Interim Information and Recommendations for Health Care Providers (March 15, 2003)
  Information for clinicians on case finding, evaluation, infection control, treatment, & reporting
  

Health Departments

• CDC Interim Guidance for State and Local Health Departments (March 16, 2003)
  Information on identifying & reporting suspected cases
  

Isolation and Infection Control

• CDC Guideline for Isolation Precautions in Hospitals
  Infection control practices for infectious disease in healthcare settings.
  
  
• CDC Guidelines for Infection Control in Health Care Personnel, 1998
  Preventing the spread of infectious diseases among staff in healthcare settings.
  

Respiratory Protection

• TB Respiratory Protection Program In Health Care Facilities: Administrator's Guide
  Information is specific to tuberulosis but also provides useful information on respirators, including types used to protect healthcare workers.
  
  
  • User Seal Check, Fit-Test, and Issue Respirators
    Infection control practices for infectious disease in healthcare settings.
    
    
• Protect Yourself Against Tuberculosis—A Respiratory Protection Guide for Health Care Workers
  Information is specific to tuberulosis but also provides useful information on respirators.
  

Other Resources

• World Health Organization issues emergency travel advisory (March 15, 2003)
  Due to the spread of SARS to several countries in a short period of time, the World Health Organization (WHO) has issued emergency guidance for travellers & airlines...
  
  
• WHO issues global alert about cases of atypical pneumonia (March 12, 2003)
  Background information on the outbreaks, which were first reported in Vietnam & Hong Kong
  
  
• Government of Ontario press release: Ontario issues alert about four cases of atypical pneumonia (March 14, 2003)
  Ontario Ministry of Health investigation of cases in Toronto
  
  

Page last modified March 16, 2003, 4:00 PM EST

[Timesink]

Note that articles are not in chronological order; the new articles are in the middle of the list.

[dep]

problem is, a lot of your links, not containing full pathnames, don't work.

dep

[bonesmccoy]

previously posted already...see other thread...

[Timesink]

Aw crap, I forgot to fix those. I usually make sure to check all the links before I post.

[Timesink]

I did look at the other thread; didn't see the Sunday update. Or are we looking at different "other threads"?

[LadyDoc]

problem is, a lot of your links, not containing full pathnames, don't work.


Just go to the top CDC link and you can find the rest of the links.

[bonesmccoy]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/865557/posts?page=136

[Jim Noble]

This is the PM updated page for today, but there still isn't much to see other than what you can find in the newspapers.

It is interesting that cases are blooming along travel routes so quickly-must be short incubation, which might imply a large inoculum is being generated.

Interesting stuff-the "high mortality" seems to be a false alarm.

[bonesmccoy]

Hi Jim,
I was going to start that BT thread last night, but got too tired from monitoring the Iraqi threads.

We need to start a technical BT thread where we compare the contagion, rapidity of diagnosis and targetting of the population. We should be able to evaluate various pathogens in the context of the WHO idiocy.

We can probably piece together the story from international sources.

[bonesmccoy]

re: high-mortality

there are probably tons of people with the infection, but only a few are getting this ill.

This is commonly seen in initial waves of infection.

[Jim Noble]

Yes, agree.

If you remember, the Legionnaire's mortality from the Bellevue-Stratford outbreak in 1979 was very high-because a) no one knew that erythromycin and tetracycline were the drugs of choice; and b) the ultra-strict case definition excluded all the mild cases.

[Old Professer]

And to this day, the cause of Legionaire's disease persists - setting water heater temperatures at 120° F., a perfect incubation temperature for bacteria.

The knuckleheads-in-charge are afraid of scalding idiots, they'd rather poison them.

[Timesink]

Update: Experts Suspect Virus Is Cause of Asian Mystery Illness