Posted on 06/11/2003 7:56:40 PM PDT by IYAAYAS
GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Health Organization (news - web sites) may renew a warning against travel to Toronto if a feared upsurge in SARS (news - web sites) was confirmed in Canada's largest city and business capital, a WHO spokesman said on Wednesday.
But there was "nothing automatic" about issuing a call to avoid unnecessary travel to Toronto, even if the suspected outbreak could push it further above some WHO trigger points for such alerts, spokesman Iain Simpson added.
Canadian health officials said on Tuesday they were investigating 12 pneumonia patients at a Toronto clinic who had developed symptoms of the potentially fatal respiratory disease.
Also on Tuesday, officials said a U.S. traveller from North Carolina, who visited a friend at a hospital in the city in mid-May, had developed fever, pneumonia and then SARS a week after returning home.
"It (the upsurge) would be a reason for us to look at the situation again," Simpson told Reuters, although no decision would be taken before Friday when the WHO travel review body next meets.
"(But) there is nothing automatic about the travel recommendation. It is a judgement about whether there is a risk for people travelling to that area," he said.
WHO issued a travel alert on Toronto, the only place outside southeast Asia where people have died of SARS, in April before withdrawing it a week later after angry Canadian protests.
The warning hurt tourism, and Toronto is still cancelling shows and suffering high hotel vacancies.
In issuing an alert, WHO weighs several factors including the number of outstanding cases, the rate of new infections and the danger that the area could export the disease elsewhere.
Toronto already has slightly more than the 60 current cases WHO uses as one of its potential triggers. The number of probable cases dropped to 64 on Tuesday from 66 on Monday in and around Toronto, a city of four million people.
SARS, which has no simple treatment, originated in southern China last November and has spread to 30 countries and killed about 780 people worldwide.
Actually Canada is bigger than the U.S., if you count tundra and ice.
Okay, then where is Peoria?
I don't know, somewhere in Illinois maybe, and we're marching toward it.
I beg to differ...
Toronto still has 2 days to 'massage' their numbers and may try to scrub their caseload down to 59 active 'probable' cases by Friday.
Watch for lower numbers Thursday, and if still not there, watch for a 1st-ever early-in-the-day report of their numbers, (below 60 'probable' cases of course) on Friday
Unfortunately, Toronto and Ontario officials have a credibility problem. Some of us now suspect that politics are interferring with accurate reports and containment efforts. If that were to become confirmed, such as by the recently authorized investigations or the nurse's association, they will do long-term harm to Toronto that will last long after SARS has really been contained.
In fact Canada is the second largest country in the world in terms of size, behind Russia and far larger than the entire U.S. Comparing city to city, Toronto is about the same size as Chicago...
I thought this is where the North Carolina person was infected?
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