Posted on 04/26/2003 4:06:58 PM PDT by jerseygirl
City's rushing to slam door on SARS
Using bioterror plans to battle deadly virus
By PAUL H.B. SHIN DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Policemen in Beijing block off a street leading to a SARS-infested hospital - a sight we may soon witness in New York. New York City is gearing up to battle the superbug causing panic across the globe.
The spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, prompted city health officials to resurrect emergency plans created to deal with bioterror attacks.
Some hospitals will set up isolation wards in case their emergency rooms are overrun by an outbreak of the deadly flulike illness, which has sickened 4,439 people worldwide and killed 263.
"If we had to do that, the hospital would be in disaster mode," said Dr. Robert Rothberg, director of the emergency department at NYU Medical Center, which could treat up to 35 patients in a special pressurized room.
Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden said the city was prepared to "invoke its legal authority" to isolate patients.
The Health Department also ratcheted up its syndromic surveillance system, which flags abnormal clusters of symptoms using data from 911 calls, emergency room visits, drug store purchases and even absentee rolls from an undisclosed city agency.
"With the outbreak of SARS, we're certainly looking at it with greater scrutiny," said Dr. Don Weiss, director of the communicable disease surveillance unit.
Possible new cases
The measures came as the number of New Yorkers thought to be suffering from SARS jumped to 18 yesterday from 13.
Two of them are likely infections, while 16 are suspected cases in which patients show flulike symptoms and recently traveled to areas reeling from the epidemic — Asia and Toronto.
A second major hospital in Beijing was shut yesterday and more than 2,000 employees put under observation for SARS.
About 4,000 people who have had "intimate contact" with others showing SARS symptoms have been ordered to stay at home under quarantine, a Beijing health official said early today.
Anxious people in the Chinese capital went on panic buying sprees, emptying stores of rice, oil and frozen food. Across China, 110 people have died from the disease, according to the World Health Organization.
In Canada, angry officials blasted the UN agency after it warned travelers against going to Toronto, the only area outside Asia with SARS deaths.
Mayor Bloomberg said a similar advisory against New York could cripple the already fragile economy. "Let's hope that it does not become an epidemic here in the city," he said, urging New Yorkers to see a doctor if they exhibit SARS symptoms, which include high fever and a dry cough.
In an indication of the panic, Singapore set up a medical camp yesterday to hold anyone who violates an order to stay under home quarantine. SARS has killed 19 people there.
And a Philippine Airlines flight to South Korea was turned back to Manila soon after takeoff yesterday after a passenger showed SARS-like symptoms.
The outbreak has pummeled Asian economies, and the decline in tourism has reduced demand for jet fuel by several hundred thousand barrels a day.
International health officials have slammed China for keeping the epidemic quiet until mid-March, four months after local officials became aware of a mysterious new illness.
One reason SARS is causing such concern is that the disease — caused by a mutant relative of the common cold virus — has killed a large number of healthy young people, not just the elderly and infirm.
Though new infections have been leveling off, Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, urged vigilance.
"There is nothing to suggest that an infected traveler could not come to this country and initiate a cascade of transmissions," she said.
With Michael Saul
Originally published on April 25, 2003
A disease that spreads withe the ease of a common cold would have a heyday there.
This figure is so unbelievable. One would think that every time someone cites this number they would add the words "supposedly" or "the Chinese government claims" or something to that effect. Do we really think the gov't of the PRC would act like they have in Beijing if only 100 odd people had died since November?
Why? Influenza claims similar numbers each year - CAR ACCIDENTS TOO ...
Humans and live stock in the same block, horse carcasses littering the street, water pumped from wells polluted with human waste, flies thick as fog at certain times of the year -
- WAIT!
That was New Yawk in 1832 ...
Neighborhood-level registration of travel plans, weekly 'cough-checks' by a block-captain, family-member temperature reports collected daily by phone and recorded by the 'block captain'.
Say - do I hear you volunteering as block captain?
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