SARS – BEPAST Email Update

March 28^th 2003

 

Please see “Interim Domestic guidance for Management of Exposures to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) for Healthcare and other Institutional Settings” from the CDC March 27th (10am)

 

Five (5) specific numbered recommendations are made. These include when to exclude healthcare workers from duty following unprotected exposure to a SARS patient, when not to exclude from duty, active surveillance, passive surveillance for SARS among healthcare workers, and advice for close contacts including family members and visitors to healthcare facilities.

 

Of the quite sizable number and volume of critical updates from WHO, CDC (including the latest MMWR March 28th with a Figure 1 showing a graphic of the "Chain of transmission among guests at Hotel M---Hing Kong 2003, and a clinical description of SARS), Hong Kong, Singapore, Toronto, Vietnam and elsewhere March 27-28, this one document attached here is perhaps the most crucial to have posted on our respective websites and shared today with all of our healthcare facilities both clinics and hospitals, inpatient and outpatient to decrease the risk of regional SARS transmission in DC-Virginia-Maryland.

 

Thank you.

 

Daniel R. Lucey, MD, MPH

Washington Hospital Center

Consultant to: DC DOH, DC Hospital Association, Medical Society of DC