Children suffer less from Sars

[Ayinde]

Thursday September 18, 2003
The Guardian

Children seem to be spared the deadly symptoms of severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars), suggests an analysis of the Canadian outbreak.

The global Sars outbreak killed 916 and sickened 8,422 between November 2002 and August 2003, according to the World Health Organisation. Only a handful of victims were children, despite many being exposed to the virus.

Of 247 probable Sars cases in Toronto, just 14 were under 12 years of age, physician Ari Bitnun of the city's Hospital for Sick Children told this week's interscience conference on antimicrobial agents and chemotherapy in Chicago. All 14 became sick after contact with relatives who subsequently developed Sars, or who had visited an area suffering a Sars epidemic.

Despite fever, cough and congestion, all recovered from their infection without the help of a respirator. X-rays and blood tests showed their illnesses to be no worse than those of 10 other children admitted to the same hospital with confirmed non-Sars respiratory illness at around the same time. "Our results indicate that Sars is a relatively mild, non-specific illness in children," said Bitnun.

The children got better more quickly as well - all recovered within a week or two. "Their parents were still ill two months later," Bitnun told the meeting.

Children's naive immune system may have helped them to survive, Bitnun suspects.

Most Sars deaths were from pneumonia, typically caused by an immune overreaction to a lung infection. An immune system that fails to put up a fight makes some other infections, such as hepatitis A and chicken pox, milder in children.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sars/story/0,13036,1043912,00.html

[Kingston]

Ayinde,

I reside in Toronto.  Sars was a huge ordeal unlike anything this city has seen before.  A large number of people died and a few are still in the hospital in deteriorating condition as a result of the outbreak.  It is painful to watch as months after the "containment", people are still succumbing to the effects of this disease.  And yes, the majority of the affected were the elderly and of course front line hospital workers that were exposed before knowledge of the problem was discovered.

Yesterday the city held a first of its kind confrence to examine what was done and what could have been done differently in the Sars crisis.  One major area of discussion was the mass quarantine that was placed one the city.  It seems that a number of officials feel the city over reacted when they closed hospitals to the public (even to the families of suspected cases) and told anyone that may have come into contact with an infected person to quarantine themselves for 10 days. The problem was one could have no idea of who was infected or not. I think at one point there was 2000 people in quarantine and the effects of that idea where frightening.  Many businesses closed down for a few weeks, service workers lost wages due to lack of demand and there was an overall worry that anyone could be infected and die.

It now seems that Sars was not as contageous as first thought and the city may have over reacted a little, not to mention the WHO, who issued a travel advisory and later a ban on Toronto before the host city in China or even Taiwan.

I can't say I don't understand though.  This was a brand new disease whoss affects and causes were largely unkown.  It is my belief that sometimes there is know right or wrong way to react to a stimulus, ther is just the way one does.  I think the city of Toronto handled it quite well.

I did not know anyone personally or know anyone who knew someone who contraced Sars.  

It is provincial election time here right now and I believe that this meeting yesterday was just a stunt to see where the blame can be layed for political benifet.  I love that in this era the blame must be given to someone.  Someone must take the fall....its very saddening.

..Kingston..