news No cases in Toronto, but city ready for any possible swine flu cases: officials

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No cases in Toronto, but city ready for any possible swine flu cases: officials



50 minutes ago




By The Canadian Press


TORONTO - Toronto officials say the city has no confirmed cases of swine flu but add a pandemic response plan is in place and they're ready for any outbreak.

Mayor David Miller says the city has learned the lesson of the SARS crisis in 2003, which killed 44 people across Canada, and is ready to respond to a health emergency.

Dr. David McKeown, medical officer of health, says Toronto, more than most cities, knows what it's like to go through an outbreak of respiratory illness.

There are six confirmed cases of swine flu in Canada, four in Nova Scotia and two in British Columbia.

While the cases in Canada and the U.S. have been described as mild to moderate, there have been 152 deaths in Mexico, most of them suspected cases of swine flu.

Health officials have said it's likely there will be more cases in Canada and possible deaths.

On Monday, Dr. David Williams, Ontario's acting chief medical officer of health, said there is a major difference between how the province reacted to SARS and how it is dealing with the swine flu problem.

Williams said an integrated public health information system created after SARS means health officials are no longer "using sticky notes on the wall" to relay patient information.

A commission into the SARS outbreak suggested the first wave of infections starting in March 2003 - known as SARS 1 - was unavoidable but likely could have been controlled more quickly if public health systems for disease surveillance had been in better shape.

The report said it was impossible to know whether a second wave of SARS infections in May and June could have been prevented, but found the devastating second phase could have been caught sooner.