Canada on alert after respiratory illnesses reported in Mexico

[Diane Morin]

Re: Canada on alert after respiratory illnesses reported in Mexico

Simard condition improves

CROWN ATTORNEY: In hospital

Posted By MICHAEL PEELING

Posted 21 days ago

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The health of Cornwall's Crown attorney is showing signs of improvement after he was hit by a debilitating illness last week.

Guy Simard, 47, who took over the job from Murray Mac-Donald a few months ago, last Friday he drove himself to the hospital in Hawkesbury with symptoms of illness.

The next day he was airlifted to an Ottawa hospital when the illness escalated.

Earlier this week Simard's aunt, Lise Lavictoire, said her nephew was breathing with the aid of a respirator and waiting for a blood transfusion.
Simard allegedly contracted the illness while in Mexico on vacation.

However, a colleague of Simard's at the Ministry of the Attorney General says he is "beginning to show small signs of improvement" from what turned out to be a case of pneumonia."

Simard remains a patient of the hospital in the critical care unit with his family members surrounding him, said the colleague.

In the meantime, MacDonald, who is helping fulfill his old responsibilities while still filling his new role of director of prosecutors for eastern Ontario, said the Cornwall Crown attorney's office is in good hands.

"There are extra resources in place to support the Cornwall office staff," he said.


"The staff are pulling together and working together admirably in these challenging times."

http://www.standard-freeholder.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1506404

 

[Giuseppe]

Re: Canada on alert after respiratory illnesses reported in Mexico

Canada, Mexico: Scientists race to identify deadly illness [The Star]

Scientists race to identify deadly illness

Apr 24, 2009 04:30AM
Megan Ogilvie, Health Reporter

Canadian health officials are spearheading efforts to identify the severe respiratory illness that has baffled Mexican authorities, put hundreds in hospital and killed at least 20 otherwise healthy young adults.


The National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg has received 51 samples from Mexico ? with more expected to come ? and scientists are working to quickly identify the flu-like illness, according to officials from the Public Health Agency of Canada. Results of the laboratory tests could be expected as early as today.

Since March 18, there have been 137 cases of severe respiratory illness, or SRI, reported in Mexico and 20 deaths in a four-week span.

There have been no confirmed cases of the illness outside Mexico, but Canadian health officials are asking public health units, quarantine units and health care providers to be on the lookout for SRI, particularly in people returning from Mexico in the last two weeks.

At least one case ? a person from Ontario who returned from Mexico, was diagnosed with SRI on March 22 and who has since fully recovered ? is currently under investigation by provincial authorities, said Dr. Danielle Grondin, acting assistant deputy minister for infectious disease and emergency preparedness, at a press conference yesterday.


At this time, officials do not believe the Ontario case is related to the illness in Mexico, she said.

The Public Health Agency of Canada has raised the pandemic surveillance alert from a Level 1 to a Level 2. Grondin said this was "not common" but stressed the move was to signify their increased level of vigilance.


The agency said it planned to issue a travel advisory to Mexico yesterday evening, which would warn potential travellers to protect themselves from influenza as they would anywhere else at home and abroad. Grondin said these precautionary measures include getting the seasonal flu vaccine, regularly washing hands and covering coughs.

Canadian health officials are also concerned about seven cases of human swine influenza in the United States ? five cases in California and two in Texas. All seven cases have fully recovered, Grondin said. Some cases were the result of human-to-human transmission. Dr. Allison McGeer, director of infection control at Mount Sinai Hospital, said the surveillance alerts from Mexico and the advisories sent by Canadian public health officials are the appropriate response.

"We should be celebrating the level of transparency of communication, the speed with which this is happening," she said. "This is an excellent marker for how things have gotten better since SARS in terms of us being able to co-ordinate things internationally and figure out what is going on." In Mexico, infected individuals first reported flu-like symptoms, which rapidly progressed to severe respiratory distress in about five days. Most cases occurred in otherwise healthy young adults between the ages of 25 and 44, which health officials say caused the concern since influenza is most often deadly for the elderly and people with compromised immune systems.

The majority of the 137 cases occurred in Mexico City and some of the cases have tested positive for influenza A and B viruses. A press release issued yesterday by the Mexican health authority suggested the spike in illnesses was due to end-of-season flu activity and stressed there is not an epidemic.

It is not yet clear if the cases represent an outbreak due to a single organism or whether they represent a coincidental spike in isolated cases, said Dr. Andrew Simor, head of microbiology and infectious diseases at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre.

"At this time, there is nothing to indicate there is a new virulent strain of virus that is currently circulating globally," he said.

With files from Tanya Talaga
-
​

<cite cite="http://www.thestar.com/article/623705">TheStar.com | News & Features | Scientists race to identify deadly illness</cite>

 

[Shiloh]

Re: Canada on alert after respiratory illnesses reported in Mexico

Source: http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1538444

Mexican outbreak prompts travel advisory
HEALTH CARE
Posted By CHRISTINA SPENCER AND ANTONELLA ARTUSO, SUN MEDIA

Federal health officials warned Canadians in Mexico Thursday to take commonsense health precautions against the flu, after 20 Mexicans were confirmed dead from an unknown respiratory illness.

However, the Public Health Agency of Canada stopped short of suggesting travellers shun the popular tourist destination altogether.

"It would be excessive in our view to close borders," said Dr. Danielle Grondin, assistant deputy minister of health, even as she confirmed the health agency has issued a travel advisory and raised its surveillance-alert level because of the Mexican reports.

Earlier this week, the agency also warned provincial health authorities and quarantine officers to watch for signs of the influenza-like malady among returning travellers.

Since March 18, Mexico has reported 137 cases of the respiratory illness in previously healthy adults aged 25 to 44. Some cases are thought to be influenza A and B. But at Mexico's request, the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg is testing more than 50 samples from infected Mexican residents to try to identify the virus.

"The situation in Mexico at present poses no health concerns for the general Canadian public," Grondin said. One Canadian -- from Ontario -- returned from Mexico with a severe respiratory infection March 22, but the person "has since fully recovered," she said.

Ontario public health officials are reviewing about 10 cases of individuals who returned from Mexico with respiratory illnesses, but say they have found nothing to link them to the outbreak in that country.

The deaths have raised fears of a SARS-type illness that might be transmitted across borders. In 2003, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, originating in China, killed 44 Canadians. Grondin said there is no evidence so far that the disease is like SARS.

Dr. David Williams, Ontario's Chief Medical Officer of Health, said health officials want doctors to notify them of anyone who has been to Mexico and sought treatment for flu-like symptoms.

"One of the things we've done since SARS, instead of being complacent, we're much more aggressive at going after all these (cases)," he said.

Williams said he always advises people to get the flu vaccine, and anyone travelling to Mexico should be aware it has a late influenza season this year.

"Influenza A, as we've always said, is not to be taken casually."

Dr. Arlene King, who will become Ontario's new chief medical officer of health on June 15, said the outbreak is being closely monitored by national and international public health officials.

King, the current director general of the Centre for Immunization and Respiratory Infectious Diseases at the Public Health Agency of Canada, said, "I would go to Mexico," when asked by reporters if people should fear travel to the country.

Added Grondin: "We cannot say to Canadians to not go there. We informed them there is an increased trend of severe respiratory illness of unknown cause.

"It is for Canadians, knowing the risk, to make their decision."

- - -

Avoiding the flu

Basic flu precautions recommended by the Public Health Agency of Canada:

Seasonal flu immunization Washing hands often

Covering coughs and sneezes Staying home if ill

 

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: Canada on alert after respiratory illnesses reported in Mexico

Swine flu not as serious as SARS: Ontario

Fri Apr 24, 2009 12:37pm EDT
OTTAWA (Reuters) - An outbreak of swine flu in Ontario, Canada's most populous province, would not be as serious as the 2003 SARS epidemic, in part because authorities have been preparing for decades to fight widespread influenza, a senior provincial medical official said on Friday.

Dr. Michael Gardam, director of infectious disease prevention and control at Ontario's public health agency, said in an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that the swine flu was sensitive to anti-viral drugs.

A deadly swine flu has broken out in Mexico, killing at least 16 people and raising fears of an epidemic. The virus has been linked to a new kind of swine flu contracted by seven people in California and Texas, which border Mexico.

The Geneva-based U.N. agency WHO said it was in daily contact with U.S., Canadian and Mexican authorities and had activated its command and control center for acute public health events.

Thousands of Canadians take Mexican vacations every year.

A spokesman for the public health authority in Toronto, Ontario -- Canada's largest city -- said there had been no reported cases so far.

The 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, killed 44 people in Canada, the highest death toll outside of Asia. Most of those killed lived in Ontario, which is home to about 13 million people.

"Influenza is different from SARS. Unlike SARS, where we really didn't know what we were dealing with, influenza is something that we have spent literally years, if not decades, planning for," Gardam said.

"We've been doing a lot of work in this country preparing people for something like this," he told the CBC.

Preparations included stockpiling anti-viral drugs as well as warning people to wash their hands frequently and to cover their nose and mouth when coughing or sneezing.

"This particular virus is actually sensitive to the anti-viral drugs that people have been stockpiling over the last several years," he said.

Gardam said flu viruses mutated constantly and that the swine flu was another mutation.

"A virus like this might have the potential to spread more widely that the usual flu viruses. It doesn't, however, mean that it will necessarily be more dangerous than your regular flu viruses," he said.

He added: "We're not treating this like SARS at this point, where we're telling people to be quarantined or isolated," he said.

Gardam said that if there were an increase in flu cases in Canada, they would most likely be linked to Mexico and the United States.
http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE53N4O920090424

 

[tropical]

Re: Canada on alert after respiratory illnesses reported in Mexico

#24:
"An outbreak of swine flu in Ontario, Canada's most populous province, would not be as serious as the 2003 SARS epidemic"

Well, well,
I was always thinking that after the identification of the SARS agent,
an SARS epidemic was quoted lighter and easier controlled than an novel flu epidemic, also because of an harder way of propagation compared with the flu, and that flu patients are infectious a few days prior any temperature onset and screening ... (?!)