A 70-year-old Alachua County woman remained hospitalized Friday with a mysterious respiratory illness, as the number of SARS cases statewide rose to five.
Florida health officials announced Friday that two more women, a 53-year-old from Miami-Dade County and an 82-year-old Lee County resident, are suspected victims of the disease – severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS.
The illness has killed nearly 80 people and sickened hundreds more in its spread from eastern Asia. President Bush signed an executive order Friday giving health officials authority to quarantine Americans with SARS, though health officials have no immediate plans to use the new powers.
Tom Belcuore, director of the Alachua County Health Department, and Dr. Frederick Southwick, the University of Florida College of Medicine’s chief of infectious disease, won’t discuss details of the local case. But both see a potential risk to a community that sees more than its share of world travelers.
Describing UF as “an international mecca,” Belcuore said Friday, “The amount of travel nationally and internationally that goes on is truly remarkable. The system here is going to be constantly challenged.”
Belcuore doesn’t see measures as radical as involuntary quarantine becoming necessary anytime soon.
“At this point, it’s important to be aware, but not necessarily fearful,” he said. “We have a far more sensitive medical response program here (than in the Far East, where this illness originated), and the word is getting out to individuals to protect themselves.”
Every hospital in Gainesville is fully prepared to deal with SARS patients, he added. He declined to say which hospital was treating the Alachua County resident who was identified as having a suspected case of SARS, citing patient confidentiality. She began showing symptoms after a trip to Asia.
The four other Florida residents who may have the illness are being monitored at home. The cases appear unrelated, although the two women who are the most recent victims had both visited Asia recently, health officials said.
Finding the culprit
Researchers at the National Institutes of Health are working on a vaccine that could eventually help control the illness that has spread from Asia to North America. As of Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control reported 100 suspected SARS cases in 28 states.
CDC officials say they are 90-percent sure the mystery illness is a new form of the coronavirus, a cause of the common cold. Researchers are moving ahead on that assumption.
Until the culprit virus is positively identified, there is no definitive test to tell whether someone with the symptoms actually has SARS, Belcuore explained. The incubation period appears to be two to seven days, but could extend as long as 10 days.
Protective measures
Most Americans don’t need to take unusual precautions to protect themselves from SARS, according to CDC Director Julie Gerberding.
People who come in direct contact with SARS patients – health care workers and family members – should wear protective masks and limit contacts with body fluids, but these recommendations are “not for people who are on the streets” in everyday situations, Gerberding said.
Anyone dealing with a SARS hospital patient would be gowned, gloved and masked, Southwick said. The patient would be isolated in a room with negative pressure, so that air flows in, not out, to prevent the spread of infection.
“In an open space, just walking around, you shouldn’t pick this up,” he added. “If you are right in someone’s face and they cough on you, that would be a risk.”
The infectious disease specialist added that although no secondary infection had been documented among airline passengers, long-distance plane travel might be a concern.
For airline travelers, the World Health Organization has defined a “danger zone” as anywhere within three to four seats of an infected person. The risk falls off sharply after that. And the longer the exposure, the greater the danger.
It’s something to keep in mind during long hours spent sitting next to a stranger on an overseas flight.
The CDC’s most recent travel advisory for SARS includes all of mainland China, Hanoi in Vietnam, Singapore and Hong Kong.
“I think the last time we’ve had a worldwide health concern on this scale was one of the pandemic influenza outbreaks,” Southwick said. The international flu epidemic of 1918 killed more than 20 million people.
By Diane Chun, Gainesville Sun medical writer
