Posted on 06/06/2003 6:34:06 PM PDT by riri
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 of the twins and worked a 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. shift Wednesday at Mount Sinai Hospital's labour and delivery ward, Low said. He came down with symptoms the next day.
Five women and their newborns have been told to go into isolation at home, away from the rest of their families, and another 20 who had little or no contact with the resident were under surveillance, Low added.
Few victims of SARS have been infants, but rather the elderly or those with underlying health problems.
"We feel that this really is a case," Low said of the medical resident. "We're treating it is a case although it's still under investigation."
If so, it will raise troubling questions about the safety of relying on a 10-day incubation period -- and a quarantine period of equal length -- to stop the spread of the disease.
The health-care worker, exposed to the virus at North York General Hospital -- the epicentre of the lastest outbreak -- was placed in quarantine.
He did not develop symptoms and was cleared to leave quarantine after the 10-day incubation period elapsed. He returned to work -- this time, at Mount Sinai -- and on Day 12 developed a fever, sparking the current investigation.
He has been admitted to one of the four city hospitals treating SARS patients; he is being held in respiratory isolation while he undergoes further tests.
In yet another of the ironic twists that have been characteristic of Toronto's SARS experience, word of the potential new case came the day after Low had reported the growth curve of the current outbreak had flattened to "zero."
Dr. James Young, Ontario's commissioner of public security, echoed Low's optimism. "We're not seeing surprise cases," he said Thursday.
From time to time since SARS exploded onto the world's consciousness earlier this spring critics have questioned whether it was safe to assume the disease's incubation period was 10 days. There have been occasional reports of people coming down with symptoms as late as 14 days after exposure to the virus.
The World Health Organization has visited and revisited the issue, knowing that countries with SARS outbreaks were using the official incubation period to determine how long people who had been exposed to the disease needed to be in quarantine to stop further spread of the disease.
Its most recent position, dated May 7, says careful review of data from all areas suffering outbreaks confirms 10 days is the maximum incubation period in most cases where a single exposure to the virus has taken place.
Ontario's SARS containment leaders too have debated the issue, with the aim of trying to balance the need to stop spread of the disease and the need to disrupt lives of people who are told to go into quarantine for the least amount of time possible.
They have argued that it is hard enough to persuade someone to isolate themselves in their homes for 10 days; asking them to do so for two full weeks could provoke a compliance problem.
Well, let's just do it for 10 days, then. Who cares what the evidence shows?
My neighbor was released from hospital today. He is still running the temperature but they said there is not much they can do. His wife said they have tested him for everything under the sun. They released him with viral meningitis, viral pneumonia and mono.
When I talked to her he was running a 103plus temp but they can't give him any tylenol bacause of his liver functions.
It is so weird.
Glad to hear he is back home but, he doesn't seem much better. How do you get all those ailments at the same time?
They don't have a clue. I just really hope I never have to be hospitalized.
That's what big, strapping coppers and Crowbar Motels are for.
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