The World Health Organisation may renew a warning against travel to Toronto if a feared upsurge in SARS was confirmed in Canada's largest city and business capital, a WHO spokesman said today.
But there was "nothing automatic" about issuing a call to avoid unnecessary travel to Toronto, even if the suspected outbreak could push it further above some WHO trigger points for such alerts, spokesman Mr Iain Simpson added.
Canadian health officials said yesterday they were investigating 12 pneumonia patients at a Toronto clinic who had developed symptoms of the potentially fatal respiratory disease.
Officials also said a US traveller from North Carolina, who visited a friend at a hospital in the city in mid-May, had developed fever, pneumonia and then SARS a week after returning home.
WHO issued a travel alert on Toronto, the only place outside southeast Asia where people have died of SARS, in April before withdrawing it a week later after angry Canadian protests.
The warning hurt tourism, and Toronto is still cancelling shows and suffering high hotel vacancies.
In issuing an alert, WHO weighs several factors including the number of outstanding cases, the rate of new infections and the danger that the area could export the disease elsewhere.