WHO warns against travel to Toronto, cites risk of spread locally and abroad
KEVIN WARD
Canadian Press
Wednesday, April 23, 2003
LONDON (CP) - Toronto's addition to a list of countries the World Health Organization is advising travellers to avoid because of SARS wasn't the result of a single development in the spread of the virus, a communicable disease expert said Wednesday.
Along with Beijing and Shanxi province in China, Toronto was added because of the size of the virus's spread locally and the chances of it being exported, said Dr. Isabelle Nuttall, a medical officer with the WHO, the United Nations health agency.
"These recommendations have been carefully assessed by a group of experts on the basis of all available information, being the magnitude of the problem, the mode of transmission, the local chain of transmission and the notion of exported cases," she said in a teleconference call from Geneva, where the WHO is based.
Nuttall said the Canadian government was informed of the decision to include Toronto in its latest travel advisory 24 hours in advance of Wednesday's announcement.
Travellers are being advised to avoid visiting Toronto unless their trip is essential.
The decision will be re-examined in three weeks time, twice the maximum incubation period for severe acute respiratory syndrome, which has killed at least 250 people worldwide.
Nuttall said the WHO's decision is not an indication that the virus is out of control in Toronto.
"The virus in itself is not breaking any local chain of transmission," she added.
Toronto, Beijing and Shanxi join Hong Kong and the Chinese province of
Guangdong as no-go areas for visitors.
SARS has prompted the WHO to issue its own travel advisories for the first time - a task previously left to member countries. Since 1958, the WHO has issued weekly lists of areas infected with quarantinable diseases so that national authorities can decide whether to apply public health measures to arriving travellers or issue travel advisories.
The WHO said earlier this month that it decided to issue travel warnings over SARS because experts do not completely understand the disease and there is no vaccine to prevent its spread.
Shortly after the announcement, Britain took note of the WHO advisory and told its citizens to defer travelling to Toronto.
The WHO travel advisory was angrily dismissed in Toronto by provincial, municipal and health officials who said the move is unnecessary and damaging to the city's economy and reputation. Earlier, Chinese officials had voiced similar concerns when the WHO issued advisories regarding travel to affected regions in China.
Overall, more than 300 suspected or probable cases of SARS have been
reported in Canada - most of them in Toronto. All 16 of the SARS deaths in Canada have been in the Toronto area.
A spokesman for British Airways said travel to the Far East was down by 25 per cent in March compared to the same month in 2002, partly because of SARS but also due to the region's stalled economy and war in Iraq.
There was no drop in travel to Canada last month and it is too soon to say what impact the WHO warning might have on journeys to Toronto, said Richard Goodfellow. "It's far, far too early to tell."
The addition of Toronto to the WHO travel list led the evening news on British Broadcasting Corp. television, with a full report from the city. Normally it is rare for news from Canada to get even the slightest mention in the British media.
WHO spokeswoman Christine McNabb said its experts decided to issue the
advice on Toronto because they noticed a change in the nature of the disease's transmission in the city.
"We see that it's affected groups outside of the initial risk groups of hospital workers, families, visitors and other people who have had a very close person-to-person contact," she said.
"We've also seen a small number of people with SARS seemed to have been infected in Toronto and have travelled outside the country."
McNabb said it was a combination of these factors that led to the new travel advisory.
Toronto is the first place outside Asia that the disease was detected and the fact that SARS was exported from the city caused the WHO to focus on the city, said Dr. David Heymann, chief of communicable diseases at the world health body.
"Toronto last week had an exportation (of the disease) which set up a cluster of five cases in health workers in another country," he said. "This is what called it again to our attention."
He would not say where the disease had spread to, but there have been reports that a nurse who worked in Toronto and died upon her return to her native Philippines had been exposed to SARS, although the results of blood tests were not yet available.
Copyright 2003 The Canadian Press
KEVIN WARD
Canadian Press
Wednesday, April 23, 2003
LONDON (CP) - Toronto's addition to a list of countries the World Health Organization is advising travellers to avoid because of SARS wasn't the result of a single development in the spread of the virus, a communicable disease expert said Wednesday.
Along with Beijing and Shanxi province in China, Toronto was added because of the size of the virus's spread locally and the chances of it being exported, said Dr. Isabelle Nuttall, a medical officer with the WHO, the United Nations health agency.
"These recommendations have been carefully assessed by a group of experts on the basis of all available information, being the magnitude of the problem, the mode of transmission, the local chain of transmission and the notion of exported cases," she said in a teleconference call from Geneva, where the WHO is based.
Nuttall said the Canadian government was informed of the decision to include Toronto in its latest travel advisory 24 hours in advance of Wednesday's announcement.
Travellers are being advised to avoid visiting Toronto unless their trip is essential.
The decision will be re-examined in three weeks time, twice the maximum incubation period for severe acute respiratory syndrome, which has killed at least 250 people worldwide.
Nuttall said the WHO's decision is not an indication that the virus is out of control in Toronto.
"The virus in itself is not breaking any local chain of transmission," she added.
Toronto, Beijing and Shanxi join Hong Kong and the Chinese province of
Guangdong as no-go areas for visitors.
SARS has prompted the WHO to issue its own travel advisories for the first time - a task previously left to member countries. Since 1958, the WHO has issued weekly lists of areas infected with quarantinable diseases so that national authorities can decide whether to apply public health measures to arriving travellers or issue travel advisories.
The WHO said earlier this month that it decided to issue travel warnings over SARS because experts do not completely understand the disease and there is no vaccine to prevent its spread.
Shortly after the announcement, Britain took note of the WHO advisory and told its citizens to defer travelling to Toronto.
The WHO travel advisory was angrily dismissed in Toronto by provincial, municipal and health officials who said the move is unnecessary and damaging to the city's economy and reputation. Earlier, Chinese officials had voiced similar concerns when the WHO issued advisories regarding travel to affected regions in China.
Overall, more than 300 suspected or probable cases of SARS have been
reported in Canada - most of them in Toronto. All 16 of the SARS deaths in Canada have been in the Toronto area.
A spokesman for British Airways said travel to the Far East was down by 25 per cent in March compared to the same month in 2002, partly because of SARS but also due to the region's stalled economy and war in Iraq.
There was no drop in travel to Canada last month and it is too soon to say what impact the WHO warning might have on journeys to Toronto, said Richard Goodfellow. "It's far, far too early to tell."
The addition of Toronto to the WHO travel list led the evening news on British Broadcasting Corp. television, with a full report from the city. Normally it is rare for news from Canada to get even the slightest mention in the British media.
WHO spokeswoman Christine McNabb said its experts decided to issue the
advice on Toronto because they noticed a change in the nature of the disease's transmission in the city.
"We see that it's affected groups outside of the initial risk groups of hospital workers, families, visitors and other people who have had a very close person-to-person contact," she said.
"We've also seen a small number of people with SARS seemed to have been infected in Toronto and have travelled outside the country."
McNabb said it was a combination of these factors that led to the new travel advisory.
Toronto is the first place outside Asia that the disease was detected and the fact that SARS was exported from the city caused the WHO to focus on the city, said Dr. David Heymann, chief of communicable diseases at the world health body.
"Toronto last week had an exportation (of the disease) which set up a cluster of five cases in health workers in another country," he said. "This is what called it again to our attention."
He would not say where the disease had spread to, but there have been reports that a nurse who worked in Toronto and died upon her return to her native Philippines had been exposed to SARS, although the results of blood tests were not yet available.
Copyright 2003 The Canadian Press
