Health officials in Toronto are grappling with a possible new cluster of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) as well as a confirmed probable case of the virus exported to the United States.
Canada is the only country outside Asia to report any SARS-related deaths. All 33 SARS-linked deaths since March have been centered on the Toronto area, which witnessed a second SARS outbreak on May 22th.
It now appears there may be a third cluster of SARS patients in a non-hospital setting in Whitby, Ontario, some 30 miles east Toronto.
Officials are investigating 15 people who were at the dialysis unit of Lakeridge Health Corporation who have started to show respiratory problems and had fevers. They are being treated as SARS patients.
"It's not good news. When you see a cluster of cases of pneumonia in view of what has gone through in the last few weeks, and you have to assume it's SARS," Mr Donald Low, a leading member of Ontario province's SARS team, said.
Added to this bad news, Mr Low said, was the confirmation by North Carolina health officials of a probable SARS case in a man who had visited a Toronto area hospital in mid-May. It appears to be the first exported case of SARS from Toronto's second outbreak.
Although Toronto's first outbreak in March landed the city on a World Health Organization travel advisory for one week in April, the second cluster so far had not warranted such a move, WHO officials said recently.
Officials said they have 75 active SARS cases, including 66 probable and nine suspect. Another 260 people were under investigation as possible SARS cases.
AFP