Flu pandemic starting?

[FRED]

Train quarantined in Ontario with mystery illness
May 9, 2008 (ROB GILLIES – AP)

TORONTO (AP) — Canadian authorities quarantined a train in northern Ontario Friday after a woman died and several other people came down with an undetermined illness.

Officials were keeping passengers from leaving the train, said Steve Trinier, the director of ambulance services in the area.

The train was being held in the station in the town of Foleyet, 500 miles northwest of Toronto. The station was evacuated.

As many as 10 people were ill with flu-like symptoms. The illnesses appeared to be contained to two cars on the train of 269 passengers and 30 crew members.

One person was taken to hospital and is in stable condition, Trinier said.

The cross country Via passenger train was headed from Vancouver to Toronto when emergency officials received a call Friday morning and met the train in Foleyet.

Police constable Marc Depatie told CBC TV there were reports that the woman who died was in her 60s and already had flulike symptoms when she boarded the train with a group of tourists in Jasper, Alberta.

Seven other members of her party were experiencing similar but not extreme symptoms, he said.

Trinier said authorities did not know the cause of the illnesses yet.

"There's certainly a possibility of something as simple as food poisoning and also an environmental toxin of some sort," Trinier said.

Health officials were on the alert for norovirus, though they said that has not been identified as the cause.

Noroviruses cause stomach flu and can be caught through contact with infected people or by touching or ingesting contaminated items.

AntiSpin: Get on the train sick, get off dead. Not good. Good news is that Canada is ready for it.

[jimmygu3]

Re: Flu pandemic starting?

The cross country Via passenger train was headed from Vancouver to Toronto when emergency officials received a call Friday morning and met the train in Foleyet.

Noroviruses cause stomach flu and can be caught through contact with infected people or by touching or ingesting contaminated items.

AntiSpin: Get on the train sick, get off dead. Not good. Good news is that Canada is ready for it.

Could this have anything to do with iTulip contributor VancouverThrowinUp?

[Chris]

Re: Flu pandemic starting?

it doesn't sound like flu. The infection-to-symptom rate is far too fast for flu which usually takes at least 2-3 days (in the worst case).

Having said that, I have no idea how long a cross-country journey across Canada takes?

[touchring]

Re: Flu pandemic starting?

AntiSpin: Get on the train sick, get off dead. Not good. Good news is that Canada is ready for it.

Generally speaking, countries that were affected by SARS will be more prepared for flu pandemic. The procedure and system is in place, the hospitals and medical professionals are trained in handling an epidemic.

[goldisliberty]

Re: Flu pandemic starting? Canada's case was false alarm

Please see:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl...tory/National/
Health Team's Response Was Right on Track

ANDRÉ PICARD
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
May 10, 2008 at 12:40 AM EDT

While it turned out to be a false alarm, the response of public health officials to an apparent outbreak of disease on a Via Rail train was a textbook example of how to react to an outbreak.
Around 9 a.m. yesterday, the Sudbury District Health Unit was notified of an unusual event on the Canadian – one woman dead and six others ill. The train was stopped in Foleyet, an isolated community in Northern Ontario.
Despite the remote location and unusual circumstances, public health was able to react within an hour. To contain the potential spread of disease, the sick were isolated in one car and other passengers quarantined, meaning they could not leave the train.
“The first thing you need – and the hardest thing to get – in these situations is information,” said Burgess Hawkins, manager of the environmental health division. “We didn't know what we were dealing with.”
Serendipitously, there was a doctor on the train able to monitor the health of the sick passengers.
Public health officials, the closest of whom was about 100 kilometres away in Timmins, made their way to the train. One passenger was airlifted to hospital. So were fluid samples from the others.
Lab tests were done. “It's a process of elimination,” Mr. Hawkins said. They tested for influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV, a common respiratory ailment) and other viruses.
Meanwhile, federal, provincial and local officials were meeting by teleconference to exchange information and plan their response.
David Butler-Jones, Canada's chief public health officer, was in the operations centre in Ottawa – a facility designed to be the public nerve centre in the event of a pandemic outbreak, terrorist attack or natural disaster.
There was a series of teleconferences, again with an emphasis on “coms” (short for communications), Dr. Butler-Jones said. “You want to be transparent, but you also want to be accurate,” he said.
By mid afternoon, it was apparent there was no outbreak of infectious disease. Just a series of “confluent events” that raised alarm bells – one person dead of unknown causes, another with breathing problems and five others not feeling so well.
David Williams, Ontario's acting chief medical officer of health, delivered the news in a packed press conference. “Today went very well,” he said.
Dr. Williams was bombarded with questions from reporters suggesting public health officials overreacted.
But they acted by the book: Quickly, appropriately and professionally. It was a stark contrast to SARS, an outbreak whose response was later described as a “international embarrassment” by a blue-ribbon panel. Canada has invested a lot in pandemic preparedness over the past few years and the investment is paying off.
Officials in towns big and small routinely carry out exercises to prepare them to respond to public health crises.
“This incident gave us a good test of our systems and they turned out to be pretty good,” Mr. Hawkins said.
The reality too is that public health officials deal with outbreaks – suspected and real – all the time: in nursing homes, hospitals, schools and child-care centres.
But the unusual location, a train, attracted a lot of media attention.
Dr. Butler-Jones said the only surprise he had yesterday was how quickly the train incident became a national and even international story.
“But, in the end, I was really pleased with how everything turned out,” he said. END OF ARTICLE

If any iTulipers tire of obsessing (as I do) about the economy and precious metals (okay, I don't really tire of obsessing about such topics) and want a "break," and wish to ponder the arrival of another of the Four Horseman, and Pestilence strikes your fancy:

http://crofsblogs.typepad.com/h5n1/

This is the hyperlink for:
"H5N1

News and Resources about Avian Flu"

All the gory details in answer to the question: "How goes the 'war' against pandemic flu?" and related public health threats.

Tamiflu, respirators and Purell, anyone?