TORONTO (AP):
A WORLD Health Organization spokesman confirmed yesterday that the agency is reconsidering the travel warning it issued last week for Canada's largest city due to SARS, which claimed its 20th Canadian victim.
A 77-year-old man died from severe acute respiratory syndrome on Saturday, health authorities said. The victim was the husband of a health care worker who previously contracted the illness.
The WHO travel warning, announced Wednesday, against non-essential travel to Toronto evoked howls of protest from Canadian officials who called it unwarranted and damaging to the economy.
Evidence of the impact was immediate, with conferences and other events cancelled, including a concert tomorrow by Elton John and Billy Joel, and tourist numbers down in the city of three million people.
WHO spokesman Dick Thompson said the Canadian Government has provided his Geneva-based agency with more information about the outbreak in Toronto, where all 20 SARS deaths have occurred.
"We're re-examining that decision," Thompson said in an interview broadcast on the CTV cable news network. Acknowledging the expertise of the Canadian health officials, Thompson said his agency was responding to Canadian complaints that it acted too hastily in issuing the travel warning.
"We have to look at that, and that's what we're doing," he said. "I don't know what the outcome will be."
He defended the WHO decision as a necessary step in a fluid situation.
"Responding to an outbreak is a fast-moving business. You have to go with the information you have," he said. "The goal, the outcome will be to determine what's best to protect public health."
Canadian officials said Friday the WHO advisory could be rescinded as soon as Tuesday.
Prime Minister Jean Chretien, in his first public comments since the travel advisory was issued, said he spoke to WHO head Gro Harlem Brundtland and she agreed to review the situation. Ontario Premier Ernie Eves said the review would take place Tuesday and he expected an immediate decision.
