CDC urges 'openness' despite fear of SARS
Advertiser Staff and News Services
U.S. health officials yesterday urged businesses, schools and other groups not to bar healthy people from countries hit by the SARS epidemic from coming to the United States for meetings, graduations or other events.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended yesterday that if any visitor to the United States from a SARS-affected area does develop symptoms, officials should: • Isolate the person until medical help arrives. • Alert health authorities so ambulance workers, emergency-room employees and other healthcare workers can prepare for the patient's arrival. • Remind the healthcare workers to notify state or local health officials. Travelers planning to leave for the United States should be told not to do so if they experience symptoms within 10 days before their departure.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta made the recommendation as it released guidelines that companies, universities and other organizations can use if participants develop symptoms of severe acute respiratory syndrome after their arrival.
Federal guidelines for SARS patients
"The United States has always been and will continue to be a country that opens its doors to visitors from around the world," said Julie Gerberding, director of the CDC. "With appropriate public health measures, we can continue the kind of openness that characterizes our society despite this outbreak."
The step was prompted by a flurry of reports that businesses were canceling meetings and that schools were asking people from countries affected by SARS to stay away from graduations, summer classes or other events.
The Hawai'i Department of Health was getting some of those calls, spokeswoman Laura Lott said.
The Hawai'i events in question range from large conventions, graduations and even summer baseball games attracting international teams.
"We're in graduation season, and a number of schools and universities have been contemplating whether they can have parents visit their kids for graduation and whether kids can enroll in classes and things like that," said Martin Cetron, the CDC's deputy director for the division of global migration and quarantine.
Some organizations may not be fully aware of the precautions in place to prevent infected people from entering the country, Cetron said. Anyone boarding a plane in an affected country is screened, and all those arriving from an affected area are counseled to be on the lookout for symptoms.
Lott said the questions she is being asked are reasonable ones coming mostly from people who are playing host to a visitor: "Are they going to be quarantined as soon as they get off the plane? Do they need doctor's slips from their home countries?"
She said she's heard that some employees returning from areas have been asked to check their temperature twice daily to help ease fears among their colleagues. "Most people are just trying to be good hosts."
She does suggest that in case someone does become ill, there is a plan in place that includes phone numbers of doctors who speak that person's language.
