Learning from the Toronto SARS outbreak

Oct 4 2007

Locked doors, full masks and gowns, questionnaires and line-ups at the hand washing stations - getting health-care services during SARS wasn't easy.

Infection control measures helped contain the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003 but they also limited Torontonians' access to health care. While Toronto has recovered from the SARS outbreak, no city is immune and a similar outbreak could happen again anywhere in Canada. CIHR experts have been studying the SARS experience and are available to comment on their SARS research.

Experts:

• Did we go too far? The effects of extreme infection control measures on population mortality during SARS
  Dr. Stephen Hwang, CIHR-funded researchers from the St. Michael's Hospital (Toronto)
  
• Restricting patient's access to hospitals to control SARS: How did the public's use of health system change?
  Dr. Michael Schull, CIHR-funded researcher from the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (Toronto)
  
• Children and families and SARS, oh my! Lessons learned in pediatric health care
  Dr. David B. Nicholas, CIHR-funded researcher from the Hospital for Sick Children (Toronto)
  
• Down in the trenches: SARS and the psychological and occupational toll on health-care workers
  Dr. Robert G. Maunder, CIHR-funded researcher from the Mount Sinai Hospital (Toronto)
  
• When the helper becomes the victim: Protecting health-care workers from SARS
  Dr Annalee Yassi, CIHR-funded researcher from the University of British Columbia (Vancouver)
  
• A world changed by SARS: Optimizing clinical and public health management of influenza-like illnesses
  Dr. Kamran Khan, CIHR-funded researcher from the University of Toronto (Toronto)
  
• What next? Legal Foundations for a National Disease Surveillance and Control Body
  Professor Timothy Caulfield, CIHR-funded researcher from the University of Alberta (Edmonton)
  
• Ethical challenges in preparing for and responding to SARS
  Dr. Ross E.G. Upshur, CIHR-funded researcher from the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre (Toronto)

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) is the Government of Canada's agency for health research. CIHR's mission is to create new scientific knowledge and to catalyze its translation into improved health, more effective health services and products, and a strengthened Canadian health-care system. Composed of 13 Institutes, CIHR provides leadership and support to more than 11,000 health researchers and trainees across Canada.