The World Health Organization is scrapping its warning to travellers to stay away from Toronto. The good news for Canada's largest city helped the loonie gain more than a quarter of a U.S. cent Tuesday.

CTV.ca News Staff

The World Health Organization is scrapping its warning to travellers to stay away from Toronto. But, the UN organization said it will be watching to see that more stringent airport screening measures are put in place.

"We will be lifting the travel advisory for Toronto, Canada, effective tomorrow," WHO director Gro Harlem Brundtland told a news conference in Geneva Tuesday.

"However, I need to remind you that Toronto still has an outbreak of SARS and the lifting of this travel advisory does not change the reality that Toronto has a status as 'an affected area'," she said.

Brundtland said Toronto now meets all three criteria:

• the magnitude of probable SARS cases has decreased;
• it has been 20 days since the last new case of community transmission;
• and there are no new confirmed export cases out of Toronto or Canada.

The WHO is asking that Toronto and Canada implement more stringent screening measures to ensure, including bringing in the infrared cameras being used in Hong Kong and Singapore, and conducting more thorough interviews of passengers at airport check-ins.

"To minimize the risk of the export of SARS, we ask that all affected areas implement the recommended proactive screening and measures done by interviewing passengers at the airport check-in," Bruntland said.

"Today, we have discussed these procedures and I have been informed, later in the day, that new and more effective measures will be taken in accordance with that advice," Bruntland said. "I am happy to hear that we are moving to a more effective screening. I think it is helpful."

The change in the advisory came just hours after a delegation, led by Ontario Health Minister Tony Clement, met with Brundtland. Clement and his team were in Geneva to try to convince the WHO to lift the three-week advisory, slapped on Toronto last Wednesday.

Following the announcement, Clement applauded the efforts of health-care workers in battling SARS. He said the decision by the WHO "is a particular testament to the hard work of Toronto and Ontario health-care workers."

He also assured the world that Ontario would work to ensure SARS was contained. Clement said the city of Toronto is open for business and would survive this stigma.

"I would say to you that Torontonians are very resilient people," he said. "They are ready to open their doors again to the world."

News that the WHO rescinded its warning not to travel to Canada's largest city means that some of the economic fallout should dissipate.  

"It's good news for Ontario, which is critically important to the Canadian economy," said Reid Farrill, executive director of foreign exchange at CIBC World Markets.

Airport screening

Though the advisory is now lifted, there are plenty of people who say Canada could have taken steps to avoid the advisory in the first place. A month before the travel alert was issued, the WHO asked Ottawa to improve screening at the airport to prevent the spread of SARS.

Places like Singapore, meanwhile, were already using infrared sensors to check passengers for fevers.

"I also mentioned when I spoke with the prime minister and the health minister last Thursday and Friday about the importance of the screening measures," Bruntland said Tuesday.

In Geneva, Clement denied the travel advisory was issued because of a lack of stringent airport screening measures. "I would say that as the rest of the world, we are learning as we go.

"With respect to entering our country and exiting our country, that the kinds of approaches that perhaps were deemed to be natural and acceptable three or four weeks ago, we've learned, as along with the health care community generally in the world that perhaps other things might be necessary and could help us along the way," Clement said.

Responding to criticism that her department did not act fast enough to implement screening procedures, Health Minister Anne McLellan told the House of Commons: "We are learning more about the control and containment of this particular infectious disease every day."

"I have said in this House ... over and over again that we review our measures and act appropriately and enhance them," she said.

McLellan said new screening procedures will be implemented "within days.''

"We're going to put into place two pilot projects, one at Pearson, and Vancouver,'' she said. "We will use more than one technology and then we will determine the benefits, if any, from that technology and we will share that with the WHO.''

She said passengers will be interviewed only if the infrared equipment detects an elevated temperature. However, she told Canada AM Tuesday there are still questions about their effectiveness since they will identify people who have fevers but who don't have SARS.

"Certainly, at this point, the jury is very much still out in terms of what they actually add to the public health protection of those Canadians and people here abroad," she said.

Meanwhile, a group of WHO officials is expected in Toronto on Wednesday to see what efforts are being made on the ground to contain the disease.

Dr. Sheela Basrur, Toronto's medical officer of health, said they look forward to declaring the SARS emergency over, once 20 days pass from the last case of infection. That exact date is still being determined and will be discussed with the WHO officials once they get to the city.

"By my estimation, we are more than halfway there. But we'd like to review the cases as we've outlined them with the WHO, make sure we are all in agreement with those dates and then release that information publicly," Basrur told a Toronto news conference.

Toronto Mayor Mel Lastman, clearly happy by the WHO decision to lift the advisory, urged people to come out to events in Toronto. "Our city is safe and I want everyone to come and experience all that Toronto has to offer."

As of Monday, there were 39 active probable cases in Ontario, and 498 people in quarantine. Dr. Colin D'Cunha, the province's chief medical officer of health, who is part of the Geneva delegation, said many of those in quarantine only have a few days left of their 10-day isolation periods.