- Is Canada facing a renewed SARS outbreak OR is this still
the same outbreak? My opinion is SARS has been with us all along.
-
- Patricia
-
- [1] Date: 15 Aug 2003 From: ProMED-mail
- Source: British Columbia Center for Disease Control/Fraser
Health Authority
- Press Release 14 Aug 2003
- http://www.gov.bc.ca/healthplanning/down/sars_like_virus_august_2003.pdf
-
- British Columbia responds to flu-like illness in nursing
home
-
- VANCOUVER August 14, 2003: Public health officials are
investigating an outbreak of influenza-like illness in a North Surrey residential
care facility.
-
- The outbreak at Kinsmen Place Lodge has been actively
managed by Fraser Health Authority and the BC Centre for Disease Control
(BCCDC) since early July and appears to be tapering off with just a few
new cases identified in the past week. Through July and early August [2003],
97 of 142 residents of the facility have been affected, with most experiencing
only mild cold-like symptoms such as runny nose and cough. Of 160 staff,
46 have also shown similar symptoms. The majority of residents and staff
have fully recovered.
-
- Although health officials are aware of the deaths of
7 residents over the past 6 weeks, 4 of these deaths were unrelated. In
3 of the deaths, pneumonia was a contributing factor.
-
- "BC has a strong network of public health surveillance
and health officials take any disease outbreak very seriously," said
Dr David Patrick, director of epidemiology at BCCDC. "As with any
situation where a large number of patients and staff are affected by an
outbreak, we are working to identify the cause."
-
- Fraser Health Authority is working with BCCDC, the provincial
health officer, and Health Canada to conclusively identify the cause. Tests
performed by the National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg have yielded a range
of results for possible viruses, including positives for both human metapnuemavirus
and a virus similar to the SARS coronavirus. None of these patients fits
the profile of previous SARS cases in BC and Ontario earlier this year.
-
- "These laboratory findings are surprising given
the nature of the outbreak," said Patrick. "The symptoms and
progression of illness are not consistent with SARS infection and there
is no evidence anyone related to the outbreak has traveled to an affected
area or had contact with a SARS case. While the virus looks like the SARS
coronavirus, it doesn't appear to act like the SARS virus we've come to
know," said Patrick.
-
- As a precautionary measure and in addition to the infection
control measures already in place, Kinsmen Place Lodge will be considered
a site where transmission of SARS virus may have occurred in residents
or visitors since 1 Jul 2003. "Until such time as we determine the
cause through sound medical and clinical research, we are erring on the
side of caution," said Dr Roland Guasparini, medical health officer
for Fraser Health Authority. "Infection control procedures have been
used as a standard practice during the course of this outbreak. Given these
recent lab results, there are established protocols around SARS precautions
that Fraser Health is familiar with and will maintain."
-
- Since the outbreak began in early July, full precautions
have been taken to limit the spread of the illness. The outbreak has been
contained and the rate of transmission and number of new cases has dropped
to very low levels. Kinsmen Place Lodge has had visiting and admissions
restrictions in place since the outbreak was first identified. Isolation
precautions were instituted around symptomatic patients and will continue.
In addition, staff have been directed not to work between different facilities
and ill staff have been directed not to work.
-
- Visitors to Kinsmen Place Lodge after 1 Jul 2003 who
have a cough and fever over 38 degrees Celsius have been asked to contact
BC NurseLine.
-
- Media Contact Information: Sally Greenwood Director,
Communications Transplant, Renal and Public Health, PHSA Helen Carkner
Director, Public Affairs Communication, Fraser Health Authority
-
- ******
- [2] Date: 15 Aug 2003
- From: ProMED-mail
- Source: Yahoo news
- http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=553&ncid
- =751&e=10&u=/ap/20030815/ap_wo_en_he/na_gen_canada_mystery_illness
-
-
- WHO rules out SARS as mystery illness at Canadian nursing
home
- --------------------------------------------------------------
-
- VANCOUVER, British Columbia: - The World Health Organization
said on Friday that a pneumonia-like illness that sickened dozens of people
at a British Columbia nursing home probably was not SARS. 7 people have
died, 3 of them due to respiratory illness, since the unknown disease first
appeared 6 weeks ago at the Kinsman Place Lodge in the Vancouver suburb
of Surrey, said Dr Shaun Peck, the British Columbia deputy medical health
officer.
-
- In Geneva, WHO spokesman Iain Simpson said some tests
showed the cause could be a virus that causes severe acute respiratory
syndrome, known as SARS, but no other similarities exist. Simpson noted
patients at the nursing home lacked the high fever, breathing difficulties,
and other symptoms associated with SARS. "At the moment we don't exactly
understand what is happening," Simpson said. "They have found
10 positive results for the SARS virus. We don't believe this is an outbreak
of SARS but the local authorities in Vancouver are taking a very conservative
approach." The illness could be a milder form of SARS than previously
encountered, Simpson said. "We are waiting for more information from
Canada," he said. SARS sickened almost 250 people, killing 44 of them,
in two outbreaks this year in Toronto, Canada's largest city. At the nursing
home, 97 out of 142 residents and 46 of 160 staff members have fallen ill
in the past 6 weeks, Peck said Thursday.
-
- Although laboratory tests showed some results for a corona
virus similar to SARS, Peck and others noted few similarities between the
illness and SARS. Those infected show mild, cold-like symptoms such as
runny nose with no fever, said Dr David Patrick of the British Columbia
Center for Disease Control. SARS patients generally develop high fever
and respiratory problems.
-
- The outbreak peaked on 29 Jul 2003 and has since tapered
off, with the last person developing symptoms 3 days ago, according to
Patrick. None of the affected staff members needed hospital admission,
he said.
-
- ******
- [3] Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2003 07:45:54 +1200 (NZST) From:
Mark Collins
- and Kaz Matsuki
- Source: Canada.com
-
-
- BC nursing home hit by SARS-like virus, dozens of patients,
staff infected
- --------------------------------------
-
- VANCOUVER (CP): Federal and BC health authorities are
looking into the deaths of 7 people and the infection of dozens of others
at a BC nursing home hit by a mysterious, "SARS-like" respiratory
virus. While stressing this was not another outbreak of SARS, which killed
more than 40 people in the Toronto area this year, officials said they
were treating like the deadly form of pneumonia until they learn more about
it.
-
- The illness struck Kinsman Place Lodge in suburban Surrey,
infecting 97 out of 142 residents and 46 of 160 staff members over the
last 6 weeks, Dr Shaun Peck, BC deputy medical health officer, said on
Thursday.
-
- "There have been 7 deaths, although only 3 of them
have been directly associated with a respiratory illness," Peck told
a news briefing. Officials said nursing homes such as the Kinsman Place
Lodge normally can average 4 to 5 deaths a month. Preliminary tests from
the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg show the disease "appears
to be a SARS-like virus," said Peck. "Although clinically it
is not an illness that we associate with SARS, we felt obliged to let everybody
know about it."
-
- Staff and residents infected by the illness showed only
mild, cold-like symptoms such as runny nose with no fever, said Dr David
Patrick of the BC Centre for Disease Control. "This is not a typical
SARS picture," he said. He said 2 of the deaths being probed were
patients already in palliative care, 2 were from vascular causes and 3
others had pneumonia as a contributing factor along with an underlying
illness. Lab tests produced some positive results for a SARS-like corona
virus, said Patrick.
-
- "These findings around a SARS-like virus from the
lab are unexpected," he said. "The outbreak hasn't behaved at
all like SARS as manifested in Hong Kong, Toronto, Singapore, Vancouver,
et cetera, in the past." Peck said this could be the SARS virus behaving
less aggressively or a closely related, less virulent virus previously
unknown, or a SARS virus weakened through genetic alternation. "All
these possibilities remain and they need to be clarified," he said.
-
- Scientists at Winnipeg and the US Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention in Atlanta will try to identify the virus and compare
it with the known SARS virus. "In the meantime though and until this
is clear, we're playing it safe," said Peck. The outbreak was initially
treated as influenza -- common in nursing homes -- but tests for the flu
virus proved negative, said Dr Roland Guasparini, chief medical officer
for the Fraser Health Authority. Early tests for SARS also came back negative,
he said. But when the new results came in, precautions were stepped up,
he said.
-
- "Based on these preliminary lab findings ... we're
going to consider this long-term care facility as a site where transmission
of SARS may have occurred in residents or visitors since 1 Jul 2003,"
said Guasparini. He noted there was no evidence the illness had been transmitted
outside the nursing home.
-
- Guasparini said one patient remained isolated in hospital
with pneumonia and staff who were exposed are being tracked for possible
quarantine and observation. "We're going to adopt a very careful public-health
approach to this, as we did in the past, when we were investigating the
cases of SARS and suspect SARS that we had," he said.
-
- Guasparini said the public should take normal precautions
against the new illness, such as reducing contact with others if one has
cold symptoms and maintaining hygiene. Visitors to the stricken nursing
home who develop a fever of more than 38 degrees, along with a cough, should
telephone a local public health hotline. Those who become seriously ill
should contact their doctors.
-
- Symptoms shown by the nursing-home residents included
cough, sore throat, joint pain, muscle pain and extreme fatigue. The nursing
home had a sign at the front door Thursday warning visitors the facility
was dealing with a "respiratory outbreak," and recommending people
do not enter.
-
- [byline: Emily Yearwood-Lee]
-
- -- ProMED-mail <promed@promedmail.org>
-
- [The description of the illness is that of a mild respiratory
illness. According to the numbers provided, there were 97 out of 142 residents
(clinical attack rate 68 per cent) and 46 of 160 staff members (attack
rate 29 per cent) with 3 deaths (overall case fatality rate 2 per cent
with a case fatality rate of 3 per cent among residents). The attack rates
are very high, and the case fatality rate very low, especially among the
residents -- remembering that the case fatality rate among the elderly
in the SARS outbreak in both Hong Kong and Singapore was about 50 per cent
or higher). There is much room for speculation, including a change of the
virus to a less virulent form. There is also the possibility that as a
result of increased surveillance for respiratory illness, and the increase
in laboratory studies now conducted on outbreaks of respiratory illness,
that we will be identifying many "new pathogens" that we did
not know about in the past... a corollary of "seek and ye shall find".
We await further word on the virological studies related to this outbreak.
- Mod.MPP
-
- The results of the virological investigations provide
no convincing evidence so far that the SARS coronavirus responsible for
the outbreak originating in Guangdong Province in China is the etiologic
agent in this outbreak in British Columbia. Indeed there is no clear indication
that a single virus pathogen is involved. Many respiratory viruses are
virtually ubiquitous in the human population and can be responsible simultaneously
for respiratory illness in vulnerable groups such as those at risk in the
British Columbia outbreak. Nor is it surprising that a SARS-like coronavirus
has been detected, since 2 other human coronaviruses are established respiratory
pathogens, and others may exist. Characterization of the SARS coronavirus
indicates it is more similar to the group 2 coronaviruses (J Mol Biol 2003;
33: 991-1004), than to the group 1 coronaviruses. It will be interesting
to see whether this putative SARS-like coronavirus exhibits a similar relationship.
- Mod.CP]
-
-
- Patricia A. Doyle, PhD Please visit my "Emerging
Diseases" message board at: http://www.clickitnews.com/ubbthreads/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=emergingdiseases
Zhan le Devlesa tai sastimasa Go with God and in Good Health
|
