A suspected case of the new Chinese coronavirus has been detected for the first time in Canada, Ontario officials said on Saturday. "We have the first suspected case of the new coronavirus confirmed here" in Toronto, said Eileen de Villa, head of health authorities for the great metropolis of Ontario, at a press conference.
The patient, a man in his 50s, had stayed in Wuhan, the big city where this new infection appeared in December. He arrived on January 22 and was hospitalized at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto the next day, said Barbara Yaffe, the deputy chief medical officer for the province of Ontario. The man was placed in solitary confinement. Samples will be sent to a laboratory in Winnipeg (center) to confirm whether it is the Chinese coronavirus, authorities said. The latter wanted to be reassuring about the risks of contamination, believing that the patient was not in contact with people other than his family circle.
A matter of time
On Friday, the chief medical officer of the province of Ontario, Dr. David Williams, warned that the arrival of the new Chinese virus in Canada was a matter of time. “We still haven't seen a case. But I think we'll see: it's a question of where and when, "he said on Friday. Canada has a "robust surveillance system and a team ready" to "respond," he said.
In 2003, when the SARS epidemic last appeared in Canada, a total of 44 people died from the virus in the Toronto area. In North America, two cases of the new Chinese virus have already been confirmed in the United States, one in Washington State, the other in Chicago.
Dead man in Shanghai
The epidemic of viral pneumonia in China has killed one in Shanghai, local government announced Sunday, the first victim of the coronavirus in the big financial metropolis of the east of the country. The victim is an 88-year-old man who had previously had health problems, the government said in a statement, adding that 40 cases of infections in the city have been confirmed so far.
According to a provisional report, the coronavirus left 54 dead and a total of 1,610 cases were confirmed Sunday by the Chinese authorities. China has taken drastic measures to combat the new coronavirus, imposing a cordon cordon around Wuhan and almost all of central Hubei province.
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