- TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada's
cabinet met on Tuesday in a show of support for the city that has had the
highest number of SARS deaths outside of Asia, and officials later welcomed
the World Health Organization (WHO) decision to rescind a travel warning
to Toronto.
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- Gathered at a downtown hotel, the ministers said they
would do their best to support Toronto, whose economy is reeling from the
impact of severe acute respiratory syndrome.
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- "The people of Toronto are living normal lives,
5 million of them," Prime Minister Jean Chretien said after the cabinet
met outside the capital of Ottawa for the first time in his decade in power.
"We've turned the corner."
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- But Chretien said the SARS outbreak is hurting the Canadian
economy, especially in Toronto, where most of Canada's cases and all its
SARS deaths have been concentrated.
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- Canada is the only country outside Asia where people
have died from SARS, which started in China.
-
- Canadian officials successfully lobbied the WHO to rescind
the warning to travelers to stay away from Toronto -- a factor that deepened
the economic gloom hanging over Canada's largest city.
-
- In Geneva, WHO Director Gro Harlem Brundtland said the
lifting of the travel advisory was effective beginning Wednesday.
-
- Canadian health officials had insisted the outbreak was
coming under control, with the number of cases on the decline and the disease
not spread beyond the medical community.
-
- "We are delighted with the World Health Organization's
latest decision," Ontario Health Minister Tony Clement said at a news
conference shown on Canadian television. "And we certainly know that
our vigilance must not stop."
-
- Clement and other officials had traveled to Geneva, where
the WHO is based, to urge that the travel ban be lifted.
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- SARS has infected more than 5,500 people in more than
20 countries, including 343 in Canada. At least 353 people have died of
SARS around the world, including 21 in the Toronto area, where five patients
remain critically ill.
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- Canada is to host an international conference on SARS
in Toronto on Wednesday and Thursday, where participants will include the
head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta
and doctors who have treated the disease.
-
- Canadian Health Minister Anne McLellan said Canada would
begin trying out infrared devices now used in Singapore to check whether
airport passengers have fevers.
-
- Defending Canada's response to the crisis, McLellan told
reporters before the Cabinet meeting, "Control and containment is
working here in Toronto."
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