# 1968
After a hectic day which saw ambulances, helicopters, and emergency personnel wearing full protective outfits converging on the tiny town of Foleyet, Ontario, the `all clear' has been announced.
Friday morning the train was stopped, and the passengers quarantined, after a woman died and a number of the passengers complained of `flu-like' illness. Early reports (which are almost invariably wrong) had up to 10 passengers hospitalized, but now it appears only 1 was airlifted to a hospital.
Public Health officials determined that the passenger's death, and the `flu-like' illnesses were unrelated. The woman that died has pre-existing health problems, and as happens sometimes, died suddenly.
The passengers with `flu-like' illnesses apparently have a `mild respiratory virus'.
The rapid response and containment we saw yesterday is the new normal in a world that travels extensively, yet is the host to many new and emerging diseases. SARS five years ago cost more than 800 lives before it was contained. Avian Flu worries many scientists today. And we could easily see new, as yet unidentified pathogens in the future.
This report is from the Toronto Star. A Hat Tip to Ironorehopper on Flutrackers for this post.
Suddenly, safe has never been so scary
May 10, 2008 04:30 AMRick Westhead - in Foleyet, Ont. - Rob Ferguson - Robert Benzie in Toronto
FOLEYET, Ont.–
Isolating a Via Rail passenger train in this remote Northern Ontario community after one passenger died and others began complaining of flu-like symptoms was not an overreaction, officials say, but the new normal in a post-SARS world.
The emergency measures swung into effect after Via Rail's Train No. 2 from Vancouver was stopped here at about 9 a.m. yesterday, stranding 264 passengers and 30 crew on the third day of its journey from the west.
The move came after health officials received reports of the death and illnesses – evoking memories of the 2003 SARS outbreak in Toronto that claimed 44 lives and heightened global sensitivity to the threat of infectious disease.
Even after it became apparent that the death and illnesses were unrelated, Ontario's top health official said the response – which saw helicopters, police cars and ambulances descend on the town of about 380 – worked just the way it should. "I'm satisfied the appropriate steps were taken," Dr. David Williams, Ontario's chief medical officer of health, told a Queen's Park news conference yesterday.
Even outsiders were impressed.
"Had we had that high level of suspicion in Toronto, for example, at the beginning of SARS, they may not have had the number of cases they subsequently had," said Dr. Perry Kendall, British Columbia's chief medical officer of health.
"So I think it's important that this is the new normal. And I think we will have events that turn out not to be events as we try to screen" for serious outbreaks, he said.
Just over 10 hours after it was stopped, at 6:47 p.m., the train was cleared to continue its journey to Toronto, and was expected to arrive at Union Station at about 8 a.m.
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