Travel warnings issued after Canada gets likely Sars cases

11.30am

TORONTO - Canada lurched back into Sars crisis mode today after health officials announced five possible new cases of the flu-like disease and the US Centres for Disease Control reinstated advice to travellers to take care if they visit Canada's largest city.

The new cases, linked to a rehabilitation hospital in north Toronto, came just over a week after the World Health Organisation said severe acute respiratory syndrome was no longer spreading in Canada.

Canadian officials insisted there was no risk to the community at large, and said they did not even know that the new illnesses were Sars because they had not been able to find any links between the five and existing SARS infections.

Canada is the only place outside Asia where people have died from Sars, with 24 deaths in the Toronto area. The illness, which started in China and was spread by travelers, has killed nearly 700 people, most of them in China and Hong Kong.

With tourists and convention-goers staying away, the Sars outbreak has hit the economy of Toronto, the country's financial capital, hard.

Rod Seiling, president of the Greater Toronto Hotel Association, said occupancy rates at Toronto hotels were 46.6 per cent in April, down from 68 per cent in April last year.

"I certainly wish the announcement (of new cases) had not been made," he said. "The effect of Sars has been devastating."

One major problem for local businesses were two advisories from abroad -- a rare recommendation from the World Health Organisation that travelers avoid the Toronto area and advice from the CDC in Atlanta that they take extra care.

Both were lifted last month and the WHO said today it had no plans yet to change Toronto's status as an area where there is no local transmission of Sars. But the CDC said it was again concerned.

"CDC is again recommending that US travellers to Toronto take precautions to safeguard their health," it said on Friday. "These include avoiding settings where there has been evidence of transmission of Sars, such as health care settings."

The CDC said its "travel alert" does not advise Americans to postpone or cancel trips to Toronto.

Health officials said they still did not know how the five had contracted Sars, which is spread by coughing and sneezing and can be fatal, especially for elderly people.

Authorities asked people who had visited the rehabilitation hospital linked to the new cases to put themselves in voluntary quarantine.

The announcement of possible new cases helped to depress the Canadian dollar, already under pressure from news about mad cow disease in Canada and economic data that reduced the chance of further hikes in Canadian interest rates.

- REUTERS