Steve Quayle News Alerts

May 24, 2003

U.S. health officials reinstated a travel alert for Toronto Friday as Canada announced a new cluster of about 20 possible SARS cases in Toronto. The alert came as a harsh blow for Canada’s largest city, which was removed from the World Health Organization’s list of SARS-affected areas last week after apparently snuffing out the biggest outbreak of the illness outside of Asia. Meanwhile, officials in Taiwan said Saturday the outbreak there is under control, reporting no new deaths for the second day in a row.

THE CENTERS for Disease Control and Prevention cited possible new cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome in renewing the alert, which warns Americans to take precautions when traveling to a particular area. It stops short of the next step of advising against the trip.

The SARS outbreak in Canada is the worst outside Asia, prompting emergency rooms throughout Toronto, the site of most cases, to operate under special restrictions that limit access. Hundreds of people have been advised to go into a 10-day quarantine in case they were exposed.

At a somber evening news conference, Ontario and Toronto health officials said an apparently undiagnosed SARS case at North York Hospital may have infected health care workers, other patients and their family members on one ward in late April.

A patient transferred from the ward to St. John’s Rehabilitation Hospital was considered the likely source of four more cases under investigation, they said. The five possible cases at the second hospital were announced earlier Friday.

Dr. Donald Low, a microbiologist and major figure in the city’s anti-SARS efforts, said the new cluster could involve two deaths of elderly patients. If confirmed, they would increase the SARS deaths in the Toronto area to 26.

“It’s been a rough day,” Low said. “We’re assuming the worst, that there’s a likely transmission to health care workers and family members.”

Asked how many possible new cases were involved, Low said: “It’s so fluid right now, it’s unfair to put a number on it, but I think we’re talking twenties.”

Ontario Health Minister Tony Clement called the situation a setback, while Dr. Colin D’Cunha, the province’s commissioner of public health, said it was uncertain if all the possible cases would be confirmed as severe acute respiratory syndrome.

Toronto last reported a new SARS case on April 19.

A WHO spokesman said Friday that determining the source of the latest cases would determine if Toronto gets put back on the U.N. agency’s list of SARS-affected areas.

“Nothing has changed at this point,” spokesman Iain Simpson said from WHO headquarters in Geneva.

Canadian officials had lobbied hard to get Toronto off the SARS pariah list, saying its continued inclusion sent the wrong message to the world about the state of the city’s outbreak, believed to be all but over.

The SARS outbreak caused economic damage in Toronto, harming the vital tourism and convention industry as Americans and others canceled plans to visit the city.

TAIWAN ANNOUNCES PROGRESS

Taiwan health officials say the SARS situation is “stabilized” after no new deaths were announced onthe island for a second day in a row.

There were only ten new SARS cases today — a steep drop from the past week.

The head of the Taiwan SARS Control Committee says “people canbegin resuming normal lives.”

The last week saw the number of SARS infections reach recordheights in Taiwan, with 65 new cases announced on Thursday.

But health authorities say this was the result of improvementsin the SARS confirmation process as inspectors worked faster toconfirm a backlog of suspected cases.

Taiwan will end its complete ban on travel from China, Hong Kongand Singapore on Monday allowing visits for business and familyreasons. Tourists from those areas will still be denied visas.

Sixty people have died from SARS in Taiwan.

WARNINGS UPDATED

Elsewhere in Asia, the World Health Organization withdrew its warning against travel to Hong Kong and the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, saying SARS outbreaks there were under control.

“Guangdong was the first place in the world to have cases of SARS but I am pleased to note that due to the efforts of the local and national health authorities, with support from WHO, the outbreaks in Guangdong and Hong Kong are being contained,” said WHO Director-General Gro Harlem Brundtland.

The U.N. health agency continued to advise against all nonessential travel to the Chinese capital, Beijing, and to the regions of Hebei, Inner Mongolia, Shanxi and Tianjin, as well as to Taiwan, because of continuing new transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome.

In Hong Kong, the daily number of new cases has on average been below five for the past six days and the number of patients in hospitals has dropped below 60, WHO said. Both were conditions in removing the ban.

“The pattern of the outbreak shows a sustained decline since the peak of new cases in late March,” the agency said.

In Guangdong, the average of new cases has been below five for 11 days and the number of patients in the hospital fell below 60 on Tuesday.

“Due to the efforts of the provincial health authorities, the extent of local transmission has fallen to low levels over recent weeks,” WHO said.

There have been no recent reports of cases being exported to other countries from Hong Kong or Guangdong, it added.

The first known SARS case emerged in southern China last November and began spreading to several other countries in March, infecting 8,113 people so far and killing 688.

LINK TO CATS?

Meanwhile, a top Hong Kong scientist said Friday that research showed it was likely the SARS virus that has killed almost 700 people worldwide jumped to humans from civet cats, which are considered a delicacy by many people in southern China.

Scientists have isolated four virus samples from the feces and respiratory secretions of civet cats, a nocturnal animal related to the mongoose, and they were “very similar” to the coronavirus found in SARS patients, said Professor Yuen Kwok-yung, Department of Microbiology head at the University of Hong Kong.

“From genetic information, it is highly likely that the virus jumped from civet cats to humans,” Yuen told reporters, releasing results of a month-long investigation by Hong Kong and Chinese scientists.

Experts say SARS is caused by an unknown member of the corona family of viruses, which cause the common cold.

In Geneva, World Health Organization (WHO) officials warned it was too early to jump to firm conclusions. “At this point of time, we cannot definitely conclude that these or any other animals are the reservoirs or hosts for SARS,” said WHO chief scientist Klaus Stohr.

The civet cat, or civet, belongs to a large group of mostly nocturnal mammals which also includes the mongoose. The Columbia Encyclopedia says civets are not true cats, but are related to the cat family. Most have cat-like bodies, long tails and weasel-like faces.

The latest on SARS

Stohr said traces of an animal coronavirus, genetically “almost identical” to that found in humans, had also been discovered in a raccoon dog and in a badger.

The animals were among 25, including the civets, taken and tested from a single live animal market which had been chosen at random in Guangdong province near Hong Kong.

Southern Chinese like to eat wild game, including civets. These animals are kept and sold openly in markets in southern China — and subsequently butchered — often in very unsanitary conditions.

Yuen said civet cats carried huge amounts of the virus in their stools and respiratory secretions but remained unaffected.

“If you touch a surface that is contaminated with the virus and you transfer it to your mucous membrane, there is a high chance you will be infected,” he said.

In other SARS news:

TAIWAN reported 55 new SARS cases but no new deaths. The island’s total number of infections is 538 and the death toll is 60, the third-highest after mainland China and Hong Kong.

WHO issued new recommendations for blood safety precautions, saying anyone who has been in contact with a SARS patient or been in a SARS-infection region should not give blood for at least three weeks. No one is known to have contracted the disease through contaminated blood.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/885653.asp