Health Minister Adrian Dix and provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry have confirmed the province’s first case of the coronavirus, known as 2019 nCov or “novel coronavirus.”
“The person is a male in his forties and a resident in the Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) region. He regularly travels to China for his work and was in Wuhan city on his most recent trip. He returned to Vancouver last week and had onset of symptoms after his return,” Henry said in a Jan. 28 news conference.
Henry said the man followed the advice public health officials have been giving and contacted a health care clinic and notified them he was having symptoms after a trip to Wuhan.
Henry said a test for the coronavirus came back positive late Monday night.
“The person is doing well and is in isolation at home,” she said, adding that VCH is monitoring a “small number of personal and family contacts.”
Henry did not offer any other details about the patient.
In a statement updated Jan. 27, VCH said its medical health officers have been closely monitoring the situation in Wuhan since “a cluster of atypical pneumonia” cases first appeared on Dec. 31,
There are two other known cases in Canada – a husband and wife who also recently returned from Wuhan to their home in Ontario.
The VCH statement goes on to say that there are “multiple systems in place to identify, prevent and control the spread of serious infectious diseases into and within Canada” through the Public Health Agency of Canada and other bodies.
“While there are no direct flights from Wuhan, China to any Canadian city, screening is in place at airports in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal to detect people who may have recently travelled to the Wuhan area,” the VCH statement said.
“We have well-established protocols in place and are prepared to manage any unusual cases of illness among travellers arriving at Vancouver airport. Vancouver Coastal Health Medical and its health officers have advised all physicians in the region to report any suspected cases of infection amongst travellers returning from Wuhan.”
VCH said, however, that it couldn’t respond to inquiries about preparations at specific hospitals, including Sechelt Hospital, and referred Coast Reporter to the BC Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC).
BCCDC communications officer Heather Amos told Coast Reporter that the agency is working closely with all hospitals in the province to ensure they have the latest information about novel coronavirus and that all hospitals in B.C. take steps to prepare for the possibility of a pandemic in accordance with the Ministry of Health’s pandemic response plans.
“Health care workers across B.C. have been advised to be vigilant, take travel histories of anyone experiencing fever and respiratory illness, and immediately report any suspected cases to their local Medical Health Officers for further investigation,” Amos said via email.
The ministry’s pandemic response plans are available to the public at:
Canadian doctors, meanwhile, are urging concerned citizens to take the same sorts of precautions they would to avoid common illnesses, such as frequent hand-washing and coughing into the arm or sleeve rather than the hand.
They also say that wearing surgical masks during everyday life has little use in protecting against coronavirus, despite being effective in hospital settings. Early data on the new form of virus suggests masks won’t be especially effective, and some say that repeatedly touching and adjusting the masks with unwashed hands could do more harm than good.
The Sunshine Coast has already been the target of some of the rampant misinformation about the coronavirus outbreak spreading through social media. A Tweet sent Monday afternoon, using the hashtag #CoronaVirusCanada, claimed a Sechelt school was being closed for a week due to concern of coronavirus exposure.
School District No. 46 superintendent Patrick Bocking confirmed the claim, made not long after the school district posted information from VCH on its website, was “absolutely false.”
– With files from The Canadian Press
