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SARS Health Alert Update
Missouri Department of Health & Senior Services
MAY 1, 2003
FROM: RICHARD C. DUNN
DIRECTOR
SARS Health Alert, dated May 1, 2003, time 4:00 pm. This health alert incorporates all relevant and current information from previous health alert #43 updated. Please disregard information in the previous alerts because information and recommendations may have changed. Any future health alert information pertaining to SARS will be reflected in a re-issuance of the health alert with a new date, time, and changes marked "New."
It is important to emphasize that transmission of SARS in health care facilities has occurred after close contact with symptomatic individuals before recommended appropriate infection control precautions were implemented. To facilitate identification of patients who may have SARS in emergency rooms, physician’s offices, and other ambulatory care settings, targeted screening questions concerning fever, respiratory symptoms, close contact with a SARS suspect case patient, and recent travel should be included when patients call for appointments and at triage or as soon as possible after patient arrival. The most recent case definition for SARS, which is provided in the first section of this Health Alert, should be used as the basis for questions regarding travel history.
It is very important that health-care personnel who are the first points of contact with patients be trained to perform SARS screening. In the absence of a systematic screening or triage system, providers taking care of patients in ambulatory care settings should perform such screening before performing other history-taking or examinations. Because patients with developing SARS may present with either only fever or only respiratory symptoms, infection control precautions should be instituted immediately for patients who have either fever or respiratory symptoms and have had close contact with SARS or who have a history of international travel to an area identified by the case definition. A surgical mask should be placed on such patients early during the triage process until other recommended infection control precautions, which are described below, can be instituted.
Suspected SARS cases should be immediately reported to the local public
health agency, or to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services
(DHSS) at 1-800-392-0272 (24 hours a day/7 days a week).
Rather than list the entire contents of the Health Alert here, you may download either a MS Word version or Adobe Acrobat PDF version by clicking on the appropriate link below.