Dr. Saqib Shahab speaking at a press conference. (file photo/CJME News Staff)

By CJME News Staff

coronavirus

Risk of coronavirus low for Sask. residents, says health official

Jan 23, 2020 | 11:29 AM

Saskatchewan is prepared for coronavirus, but the province’s chief medical health officer said Wednesday that the risk to residents is low.

“The average person on the street doesn’t need to be concerned because there’s no transmission happening in Canada,” Dr. Saqib Shahab said during a media conference. “The concern really is, at this point, for people who are travelling, especially to China and especially to Wuhan.

“Those are the people who really need to understand what the symptoms are, what to do if you are ill and how to make sure that your health-care providers are aware of your travel history so that appropriate isolation precautions can be put in place and appropriate testing can be done.”

Canadian public health agencies are ramping up preparations for the illness, which has killed 17 people in China and infected more than 400 people.

The agencies say they’re awaiting direction from the World Health Organization, which has convened a group of experts to advise whether the outbreak should be declared a global emergency as the virus appears in other countries.

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Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, says the risk for Canadians contracting coronavirus remains low.

Ontario’s chief medical officer of health, Dr. David Williams, says the country is in a much better position to respond to the outbreak compared to 17 years ago when severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, killed more than 900 people globally, including 44 in Canada.

Williams says researchers have already identified the new virus, and a method to test for it is already being used, which wasn’t the case for the initial stages of the SARS outbreak.

Shahab said warnings have been sent to emergency rooms across the province to prepare them for the possibility.

“There’s a pre-existing protocol; it’s called the severe respiratory illness protocol,” Shahab said. “Wuhan has been added to that so that if a person presents in the ER, the person and the caregiver have to state that they have a travel history (that includes that Chinese city).”

Shahab added that hospitals in the province are well-equipped to deal with a patient who has arrives with a severe respiratory illness. The patient would be isolated and testing would be done for coronavirus or any other illness.

— With files from 980 CJME’s Lisa Schick and The Canadian Press