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TORONTO (CP) -- The city's SARS outbreak took a distressing turn Friday with news that a medical resident was likely coming down with SARS when he was present for the delivery of a set of twins at a downtown hospital during a full day's work earlier this week. The health-care worker was believed to be infected May 23 at North York General Hospital and didn't show with symptoms until two days past the 10-day incubation period, said Dr. Donald Low, a key member of the city's SARS containment team. He was showing no symptoms when he assisted in the delivery...

Blood tests of people who worked with exotic animals in markets in southern China show that a significant proportion apparently had been infected with the SARS virus, suggesting that some people may become infected without becoming ill, according to World Health Organization officials. The findings are from two separate studies of workers in markets in Guangdong Province, and they strengthen the SARS link between animals and humans, the officials said in interviews Monday. At the same time, scientists at Hong Kong University announced that they were developing what could become the first experimental vaccine for severe acute respiratory syndrome. They...

``Invisible'' Sars patients - carriers of the disease who do not display symptoms - will continue to pose a threat to local health authorities struggling to achieve zero infection rates for the disease, Director of Health Margaret Chan said yesterday. At a press briefing, Chan said the problem, which threatened local healthcare workers, was also exasperating health authorities in other Sars-stricken areas. ``Although we have encountered such situations in both local public and private hospitals, these occurrences are not confined to Hong Kong,'' she said. ``Overseas health authorities also told us [they have recorded]similar cases [in which patients'] symptoms were...

lood tests of people who worked with exotic animals in markets in southern China show that a significant proportion apparently had been infected with the SARS virus, suggesting that some people may become infected without becoming ill, World Health Organization officials said yesterday.The findings are from two separate studies of workers in markets in Guangdong Province in China, and they strengthen the SARS link between animals and humans, the officials said in interviews.At the same time, scientists at Hong Kong University announced last night that they were developing what could become the first experimental vaccine for severe acute respiratory syndrome....

<p>A person suspected of having SARS refuses to be tested for the disease and, instead, files a lawsuit claiming that government-mandated screening is a violation of his constitutional right to privacy and the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable search and seizures. Then SARS activists — afraid of being "treated like lepers" — hold up Food and Drug Administration approval of a private home SARS testing kit on the same grounds and because of objections that home tests didn't have face-to-face counseling. They also threaten to seize the patent of any company that develops a SARS drug or vaccine and give it to any generic company to ensure "access." Guess how far SARS would spread in the face of such obstacles?</p>

HONG KONG - The World Health Organization (WHO) is concerned about the sudden drop of new severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) cases reported from mainland China, doubting whether the epidemic's situation is as good as what the figures show. "The Chinese authorities are obviously adopting a definition different from ours," Peter Cordingley, spokesman of WHO West Pacific Regional Office (WPRO), said on Thursday in an interview with Asia Times Online. "There is a wide spectrum of SARS patients. While some show all kinds of symptoms including fever, coughing, etc, some may show no symptoms at all. We are afraid the...

One of Hong Kong's leading medical investigators into Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome has warned that an even wider global epidemic could occur next winter, even if the current outbreak proves to have peaked. Professor Yuen Kwok-yung, a microbiologist and one of two leaders of the Sars investigation team at Hong Kong university, said that other forms of the Coronavirus, of which Sars is the most deadly variant, go dormant in summer and become active again in winter. There was no reason to believe that the Sars virus would behave any differently. "This means that the coming winter may be even...

BETHESDA, Md. (Reuters) - Here's the good news about SARS (news - web sites) -- if you are sneezing and have a runny nose, you probably don't have it. Here's the bad news -- its symptoms look like those of countless other viral diseases, meaning that it can easily fool doctors, nurses and the patients themselves, spreading despite all but the best defenses. The resurrection of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in Toronto this past week illustrated how easy it is to let down your guard and let the virus come back with a vengeance, experts told a meeting on Friday....

<p>A top World Health Organization scientist says supplies at blood banks in China should be tested for SARS antibodies to learn whether people have been exposed to a similar virus in the past.</p> <p>"It's important for us to learn about how long this virus has been around," said WHO virologist Klaus Stohr during a daylong SARS brainstorming and briefing session held by the National Institutes of Health on Friday.</p>

Health officials powerless to squelch rumors By KEN McLEMORE and PAT HARRIS, Hope Star Writers Federal privacy rules in effect slightly more than a month are rendering local, state and national health officials powerless to prevent the spread of rumors that a Canadian truck driver has been in isolation at Medical Park Hospital since Friday with a "probable" case of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). Arkansas Department of Health Deputy Medical Director Dr. Joe Bates first confirmed the presence of a "probable" SARS case in Arkansas in a news account published Sunday in a state newspaper. At that time, Dr....

Severe acute respiratory syndrome has proved such a resilient disease that health authorities believe it cannot be eliminated, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday."I am not optimistic that we will be able to completely eradicate this infection," Dr. Julie Gerberding said at the CNN World Forum, an annual Atlanta gathering of newsmakers and journalists.Gerberding's remarks, delivered by videolink from Washington, reflected the frustration of international health authorities who are dealing with fresh outbreaks in areas where SARS appeared to have been controlled."The best case scenario [is], all the efforts that are going on globally...

Beijing-AP -- A top Chinese official says China didn't try to hide SARS -- he says the government just didn't understand the true scale of the epidemic.China's executive deputy health minister held a news conference today. He says state media reported the existence of the disease as early as February. He held up a newspaper with a page-two report telling citizens not to panic -- and to use preventive measures like disinfecting. World health officials have accused Beijing of under-reporting SARS cases, and allowing the outbreak to get much worse.

OTTAWA - A health-care worker is under observation at the Ottawa Hospital for possibe exposure to severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). This staff member works in the emergency department at the hospital's General campus. INDEPTH: Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome The hospital's chief of staff, Dr. Chris Carruthers, is concerned the worker might have been exposed to an undiagnosed case, a suspected SARS patient who had been at the emergency department 15 days ago. That same patient was later identified as a possible SARS case in Toronto. When the Ottawa Hospital found that out yesterday, Dr. Carruthers says inquiries were made...

May 23, 2003, 10:00 PM ET The previous CDC SARS case definition (published May 20, 2003) has been updated as follows: In the Epidemiologic Criteria, the last date of illness onset for inclusion as reported case for Toronto, Canada is now “ongoing.” Clinical Criteria Asymptomatic or mild respiratory illness Moderate respiratory illness Temperature of >100.4º F (>38º C)*, and One or more clinical findings of respiratory illness (e.g., cough, shortness of breath, difficulty breathing, or hypoxia). Severe respiratory illness Temperature of >100.4º F (>38º C)*, and One or more clinical findings of respiratory illness (e.g., cough, shortness of breath, difficulty...

TORONTO - The day after Toronto first learned it was home to a puzzling new virus, a public health nurse walked through the front door of an east-end apartment wearing a pair of goggles, a protective gown and a respirator mask. Two of the tenants, 78-year-old Sui-Chu Kwan, and her son, 43-year-old Chi Kwai Tse, had already fallen victim, and four of their relatives were seriously ill. The strange sickness had generated extensive media coverage, which health officials had hoped would unearth anyone who had knowingly crossed paths with Canada's first casualties of what would come to be called severe...

TORONTO (CP) - Canadian testing for the coronavirus believed to cause SARS has turned up a troubling finding: a significant proportion of people who weren't diagnosed with SARS tested positive for the virus, the head of Health Canada's microbiology laboratory told an international congress on the disease Wednesday. Dr. Frank Plummer told scientists, public health officials and government authorities from Canada, the United States, Mexico, Britain and Southeast Asia that his lab has found the virus in specimens from about 14 per cent of people who were under investigation for SARS but who never met the case definition. Some had...

The spread of SARS may be due to people who are vastly more infectious than most sufferers, Julie Robotham writes. They are the wild cards in the epidemic. So-called "super-spreaders", who apparently infect others with the SARS virus much more readily than most patients, seem to be responsible for several regional outbreaks of the pneumonia-causing illness. If it is true that some SARS carriers are hyper-infectious, that would be grim for the prospect of containing the disease. Just one super-spreader could ignite a whole new outbreak, and demolish all the good work done by isolating dozens of other patients. What...

New Delhi, April 26. (PTI): With three more persons testing positive for the SARS virus in the country, the number of such cases has gone up to seven, Health Ministry officials said here today. Of the three freshly confirmed cases, one is being treated in Kasturba Hospital, Mumbai and the other two in Apollo Hospital, Kolkata and Naidu Hospital, Pune, officials added.

Anatomy of the deadly China syndrome Virus Sars is first of many epidemics to come Ian Sample, science correspondent Friday April 25, 2003 The Guardian We're unsure where it came from, have no treatment for it and no idea when or where it will spread next. The virus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome is shrouded in unknowns. But two things are agreed upon: it's lethal, and it's not going to go away. What's more, we can look forward to far more new and extremely dangerous viruses in the next few years. In mid-February, a retired Chinese doctor, Liu Jianlun,...

Airports scan for SARS victims' flushed faces   17:54 24 April 03   NewScientist.com news service   In a bid to stop the alarming global spread of the deadly SARS virus, airports in the Far East have begun using thermal imaging cameras to detect the flushed faces of travellers suffering from a fever.   Other measures already deployed to try to slow the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) include compulsory quarantines, forced medical treatments and national travel bans. By Thursday, the virus had killed 263 people and infected over 4600 people in 25 different countries. There is no cure or vaccine...