From: Andrew Johnson
Date: 2008-05-11 09:55:51
One dead and 280 quarantined on Canadian train au.news.yahoo.com//0… Saturday May 10, 06:46 AM TORONTO/OTTAWA (Reuters) – One person died and about 280 were placed in quarantine aboard a cross-Canada train on Friday after a mystery illness caused violent flu-like symptoms. Police spokesman Marc Depatie told CTV television that seven passengers who boarded the VIA Rail train in the Rocky Mountain resort of Jasper, Alberta, had fallen ill, and one, a 60-year-old woman, had died. Another passenger had been airlifted to hospital. “One person has been determined to be deceased. We are awaiting hazmat officials…to attend the scene and board the train to determine the exact cause of what has transpired,” he said. “Seven persons are displaying symptoms of either flu or flu-like conditions. Beyond that, no other person on the train that we’re aware of is experiencing any medical discomfort.” Officials said the Toronto-bound train was being held in quarantine in the small northern Ontario community of Foleyet, and nobody except emergency personnel was allowed aboard. “At present we are also actively involved in containing the scene so that there is no further threat to public safety, and that’s why our officers have been deployed the way they have been,” Depatie told CP-24 television. VIA-Rail’s trans-Canada rail services are popular with tourists, many of whom board the train in Vancouver, British Columbia, or Jasper, for its spectacular journey through the Rockies. Officials said they did not know the cause of the illness, but microbiologist Donald Low at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital told CTV he suspected influenza. “This really points to something like influenza… Obviously this is a pretty acute event, a number of individuals sick with respiratory illness,” said Low, who played a key role containing Toronto’s 2003 epidemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome. “We’re not talking SARS, we’re not talking avian influenza… We see this happen on cruise ships and other settings when you have people together in close confines.” Toronto and Asia were the epicenters for the outbreak of SARS, a virulent atypical pneumonia that had high fatality rates, especially among health care workers. Foleyet is a town of about 350 people southwest of the mining town of Timmins, Ontario. The town’s website says it’s famous for a herd of rare white moose that lives nearby. (Additional reporting by Reuters correspondents in Toronto, Ottawa and Vancouver)(Writing by Janet Guttsman; Editing by Peter Galloway) No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG. Version: 7.5.524 / Virus Database: 269.23.15/1426 – Release Date: 10/05/2008 11:12 AM
