WHO is investigating a SARS-like outbreak in Canada

By DeNeen L. Brown, Washington Post, 8/21/2003

TORONTO -- The World Health Organization is working with Canadian officials to investigate a mysterious SARS-like virus following the deaths of 11 people at a nursing home in British Columbia, officials said yesterday. The illness has infected 144 patients and staff members.

The outbreak at the nursing home, Kinsmen Place Lodge in Surrey, raised concern among scientists about whether it was a form of severe acute respiratory syndrome or a different virus. Health officials said that while the virus at the nursing home may be linked to SARS, it produces milder symptoms.

SARS killed 44 people in Toronto and 812 people worldwide after it was identified and spread early this year from China. On July 5, WHO declared the worldwide outbreak contained.

"If this were SARS in British Columbia, we would have expected to see severe illness causing severe pneumonia," said Perry Kendall, provincial health officer for British Columbia. "Instead, we are seeing a mild illness . . . which is why we favor the hypothesis it is an altered or mutated virus, not the virus that caused the worldwide outbreaks in the spring." At the Kinsmen Place Lodge, most of the 100 patients and 44 staff members have experienced coldlike symptoms, unlike the severe, respiratory distress that characterized SARS, Kendall said.Dick Thompson, a WHO spokesman, said the organization was notified by Health Canada last week about the outbreak.If this outbreak was caused by SARS, "you would see a much higher case mortality rate," Thompson said. "You would see many more people with high fever. In this case, only 10 percent have fever. You wouldn't see people with runny noses and sore throats. Clinically, it doesn't look like SARS. Epidemiologically, it doesn't look like SARS, but we have a few test results that indicate SARS." Thompson said more study was necessary before determining the cause of the outbreak. "It is unclear, but it doesn't seem to be a public health emergency," he said. "It is a scientific mystery, not a public health threat."