A suburban Toronto high school was closed and its 1,700 students and staff members placed under quarantine after a classmate showed symptoms of SARS, health officials said Wednesday.
The move means more than 5,000 people in the Toronto area have been told to stay home for 10 days as authorities seek to control the spread of a new cluster of SARS cases known to have infected 11 people and suspected in 23 others.
Two more patients died, raising the overall SARS toll to 29 deaths in Toronto in the biggest outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome outside of Asia.
Dr. Colin D’Cunha, the Ontario commissioner of public health who announced the deaths and latest figures, said 50 more cases were under investigation and the number of suspected cases will rise.
“Absolutely, there will be more in the next few days,” said Dr. James Young, the province’s commissioner of public safety.
Also Wednesday, the World Health Organization advised Canada to broaden its definition of SARS cases after a health official expressed concern that the current one provided an incomplete accounting.
Dr. Donald Low, a microbiologist and key figure of the anti-SARS team dealing with the Toronto-area outbreak, said the number of new probable cases would be well over 20–rather than the current figure of nine–if officials used the same definition applied during the initial outbreak in March and April.
The new SARS cases first made public last week put Toronto, Canada’s largest city, back on a World Health Organization list of SARS-affected areas. Still troubled by the biggest SARS outbreak outside of Asia in recent months, Toronto faces more harm to its convention and tourism industry because of the renewed cases.
Officials worry the WHO could issue another warning against travel to the city, like one issued April 23 that was lifted a week later. D’Cunha said the criteria for such a warning are 60 or more probable cases, five new probable cases a day and proof the illness was being exported to other countries.
In Greece, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien told journalists the city was safe to visit.
“We had a new case that appeared last week, and it was confined in the hospital section of the city of Toronto. … It is under control,” said Chretien, who was attending a meeting of European Union leaders.
The possible exposure at Father Michael McGivney Catholic Academy in Markham, a northern suburb of Toronto, involved a student who attended school last week while feeling ill, officials said. The student is the son of a health-care worker linked to a hospital with SARS cases and displaying SARS-like symptoms.
On Wednesday, the student was listed as a suspected case of SARS, but Dr. Murray McQuigge, a York Region Public Health official, said there was no doubt.
“We’re saying this person does have SARS. This is deadly serious business,” McQuigge told a news conference. He outlined the guidelines for home quarantine, including no visitors, sleeping in a separate room from anyone else and wearing a respirator mask when in contact with others. He said health authorities will deliver the masks to those in quarantine.
Health officials described the closing of the school until June 3 as a precaution but acknowledged they still were learning about the illness from Asia that has erupted anew after the initial outbreak appeared under control.
