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Deadly illness in York: Officials
PATRICIA ORWEN AND GAIL SWAINSON
STAFF REPORTERS

York Region health officials say they have confirmed a new case of a deadly pneumonia-like illness and are notifying hundreds of people who came into contact with the victim that they might be infected.

The latest local case involves a 62-year-old City of Vaughan man who was admitted to Sunnybrook hospital yesterday after he fell sick with what health officials are calling severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS.

The man, who returned to Toronto on an Air Canada flight from Hong Kong early Saturday morning, came down with symptoms of the disease three days earlier, which means he was sick while on the airplane home, said Bill Mindell, the director of infectious diseases control for York Region health services.

"He had been travelling for some time in South Korea, Thailand, China and Hong Kong," Mindell said.

Meanwhile, hospital staff, ambulance workers and four relatives in the sick man's immediate family — all the people he came in contact with after arriving in Toronto — are also being closely watched by York officials, Mindell said.

The York Region case is the first case of the syndrome identified in Greater Toronto that has no connection to the original "Toronto cluster, " York's Mindell said.

"The significance of this is that it is independent of the Toronto group. This is another travel-related case," Mindell added.

The Toronto cluster includes Sui-chu Kwan, 78, who died on March 5, and her son, Chi Kwai Tse, 44, who died March 13. Kwan, her husband and another son, had recently returned from a visit to Hong Kong.

Local health officials urged calm.
"There's no need to panic ..