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VANCOUVER -- Another person has died as medical officials in Surrey, B.C., try to decode an outbreak of a mysterious SARS-like virus. The illness has raised fears of a new outbreak of the dreaded disease in Western Canada and it is spreading, but experts are cautioning Canadians not to jump to the conclusion that the respiratory illness is to blame. A second nursing home in Surrey has had nine cases of a respiratory illness among its elderly residents. And, last week, the Kinsmen Place Lodge, also in Surrey, reported 143 cases of a similar illness. Another person at the lodge...

By HELEN BRANSWELL VANCOUVER (CP) - Theories abound but answers remain elusive as experts from Canada and beyond try to figure out whether a mysterious respiratory outbreak at a Vancouver-area nursing home - which claimed another life Tuesday - is a new and milder form of SARS. The outbreak at the Kinsmen Place Lodge in suburban Surrey is confounding experts because most of the nearly 150 residents and staff who have become ill have suffered nothing more than mild cold-like symptoms - nothing like the severe disease that gave severe acute respiratory syndrome its name. While public health officials in...

Pamela Fayerman Vancouver Sun Tuesday, August 19, 2003 Genetic testing of blood and other samples from dead and ill Surrey nursing home residents and workers is so far consistent with SARS, the scientific director of Health Canada' s National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg told The Vancouver Sun Monday. Dr. Frank Plummer, who doubles as the director-general of the Centre for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control in Ottawa, said the results are so intriguing that a virologist from the World Health Organization in Geneva is expected to visit the Winnipeg laboratory today to view the samples. Dr. David Patrick, chief epidemiologist...