1st ‘probable’ SARS death

A 46-year-old Canada-based Filipina nursing assistant who died last week was "probably" the first fatality from Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in the Philippines, Health Secretary Manuel Dayrit Jr. said yesterday.

The woman, identified as Adela Catalon of Alcala, Pangasinan, died in a government hospital on April 14, two days after she was confined in a Villasis, Pangasinan medical center before being transferred to Manila.

If confirmed, Catalon’s case would be the country’s second probable SARS case and the first death in the country since the illness broke out in China last November.

Dayrit said the first probable case was a 64-year-old foreigner, whom Dayrit refused to identify but is a frequent traveler to Hong Kong, where there have been 88 SARS deaths. The foreigner recovered and was discharged from a Manila hospital.

Catalon returned to the Philippines from Toronto via Tokyo, Japan on April 4 and began experiencing "prodrom," or initial fever symptoms, on April 6.

She was rushed to an unspecified hospital in Villasis, Pangasinan on April 12 and was immediately referred to the government’s San Lazaro Hospital in Sta. Cruz, Manila where she died on April 14.

Dayrit said samples of Catalon’s blood and lung have been sent to Japan for testing and the results are expected in a week.

Dayrit said the Department of Health (DOH) has identified and is monitoring at least 254 people in Pangasinan, Tarlac, Baguio City and Metro Manila who have had contact with Catalon, comprising 200 "casual" and 54 "close" contacts.

Among the close contacts are Catalon’s cancer-stricken father, who is still confined at the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) in Alabang, Muntinlupa City; the man who chauffeured for Catalon since her arrival; an infant who was cuddled by Catalon, and an 11-year-old boy. The driver and the two children have recovered but are still under observation.

Fil-Canadians at the epicenter

Dayrit said Catalon apparently contracted the deadly illness from a roommate’s mother in Toronto in Ontario, Canada whom Dayrit did not identify.

Dayrit said the mother likely got her infection from a physician in Toronto who died of SARS after attending to another SARS patient, a member of the "Bukas Loob sa Diyos" (BLD) Filipino Catholic community, who has also died.

Dayrit also noted that the mother and father came to the country for a brief vacation and passed through Hong Kong from Toronto early last month, or two weeks before the outbreak in Canada.

Catalon’s roommate did not display any of SAR’s flu-like symptoms but her mother has been hospitalized since April 4 and her father has contracted pneumonia and is classified a probable SARS case.

Toronto, Canada’s largest city, is the epicenter of the largest SARS outbreak outside of Asia, where the disease appears to have originated.

The Toronto Star reported 10,000 Ontarians have been under quarantine since the outbreak was detected in mid-March and 1,500 remain in home isolation. SARS has killed 14 people in Canada, all in the Toronto area.

Some 450 financial advisors were put under preventive quarantine in Montreal after participating in a conference that was also attended by an unidentified Filipino member of the BLD prayer group.

Negative image for Fil-Canadians

Already, the Toronto-based Globe and Mail reported that Ontarians have begun to avoid going to Chinese restaurants and hiring Filipino nannies because of SARS.

"I have had employers looking for nannies who were afraid to interview Filipino girls," the Globe and Mail quoted nanny agency owner Jan Preston.

Barbara Kosky, who employs a Filipino nanny, offered to pay the Filipino to stay home for 10 days even though she knows that the nanny does not attend Our Lady of the Assumption church where the BLD group meets.

Nearly 500 members of the BLD group have been quarantined after public health officials identified a cluster of SARS cases that spread during a religious retreat on Mar. 28-30, infecting 31 people, including three children and three doctors.

But BLD steward Clarita Malolos said she is not sure whether members will break quarantine to attend Easter celebrations.

"We tell them that is the order of the public health and we have to abide with it. But as to their individual actions, we cannot monitor it," the Globe and Mail quoted Malolos as saying.

Malolos, who completed her 10-day quarantine period, later attended a wake at Toronto’s Highland Funeral Homes for a man whose family was exposed to SARS.

Some 206 people have died of SARS so far and more than 4,000 people are confirmed or suspected to have been infected by the disease in around 30 countries since the crisis erupted.

The vast majority of cases have been in China and Hong Kong, with the former British colony seeing an alarming surge in deaths over the past seven days. — With reports from Eva Visperas, Toronto Star, Globe and Mail