Doctors On Train Illness: Better Safe Than Sorry
Posted May 9, 2008 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
It looked like a giant overreaction – a VIA Rail train carrying more than 200 people is quarantined for hours in a remote northern Ontario town, after a 60-year-old woman died and other passengers became ill.
But it wasn’t what it seemed. Instead a series of almost improbable coincidences lead to one person’s death and six more completely unrelated ailments. The crews of ambulances, doctors, health officials and police that followed almost made it seem like an unnecessary response.
And it might have been thought about that way if not for one word: SARS. The disease that made Toronto a pariah around the world during the very long spring and summer of 2003 taught emergency personnel a lot of valuable and life saving lessons – and they put them into practice near Timmins on Friday.
Because no one knew exactly what they were dealing with, officials had no choice but to pull out all the stops – and that meant putting the brakes on the train.
“We’re all just more sensitive to what appears to be outbreaks, especially in Ontario with our experience with SARS,” relates Dr. Donald Low, an infectious disease specialist with Mt. Sinai Hospital and a familiar face during the crisis.
Biological samples were taken from the patients on the train and quick tests – known as rapid Influenza screening – were performed to rule out the presence of anything communicable or contagious. More extensive procedures are being done just to be sure. “We’ll be doing some further testing, some molecular testing there, as well as cultures. But at least the first tests are so far negative,” Low concludes.
The upshot: to prevent a serious outbreak of a disease or a pandemic, it may be necessary to overreact. And despite the inconvenience, that’s a precaution that’s worth taking.
