>>SARS cases hidden? - T.O. officials deny latest spread masked from WHO
By KEVIN CONNOR, Sun Media
TORONTO -- World Health Organization officials are flabbergasted Canadian health officials masked the extent of a new potential cluster of SARS cases in Toronto.
On Friday, Canadian health officials told the WHO there were five new people being investigated for SARS when in fact there were 33 cases.
The WHO ordered an unscheduled teleconference with local health officials yesterday morning demanding answers.
"(Health Canada) is not reporting probable cases of SARS to us. I'm surprised there is this communication problem," Dick Thompson, with the WHO communicable disease branch, said yesterday. "They reported a cluster of five respiratory illnesses to us and then held a press conference (Friday evening) and disclosed there were more people being looked at that we didn't know about.
"We need to find out if these are new cases and if so where they came from."
The WHO was told about five possible cases at the St. John's Rehabilitation Hospital on Friday, but not about a possible new and large cluster of cases at North York General Hospital.
"It was an evolving situation. The information (released Friday evening about North York) was hot off the press," Dr. Colin D'Cunha, Ontario's commissioner of public health, said yesterday.
The potentially new cases are "contained in health-care facilities and pose no danger to the general population," said Ontario Premier Ernie Eves.
The 33 cases are being treated as SARS to be on the safe side, but they are not confirmed cases. As a consequence of these two new possible clusters, 500 in the city are now in quarantine.
Of the 33 cases, 25 are in hospital in respiratory isolation, six are recuperating at home and two have died. The new deaths have not been added to the official death toll in Ontario, which remains at 24.
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Health officials say an undiagnosed SARS case at North York 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 is considered the source of four more cases under investigation.
It was not known where the index case may have come from.
Toronto's new potential cluster of SARS cases won't immediately result in another travel advisory against the city by the WHO.
Thompson says the situation needs to be studied before any decision is made to put Toronto back on a list of SARS-affected areas.
On May 14, WHO announced it no longer considered Toronto an area affected by SARS because at least 20 days had passed since the last community transmitted case of the virus.
On Friday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Americans to take precautions when travelling to Toronto -- but didn't advise against travel.
There have been 24 SARS-related deaths in the Toronto area and more than 150 have become sick from the disease.
The revelation of the new outbreak broke just as a massive ad campaign aimed at reassuring the world Toronto had broken free of of SARS and was a safe place to visit was about to be launched. <<
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