SARS Outbreak in Toronto Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

SARS Outbreak in Toronto - Research Paper Example But he was not sure how to communicate the crisis to the community at large. Moreover, a timeline of events occurred that led to misinformation to the public thus proving a difficult task to find ways to curb the epidemic. Many of those mistakes were preventable, for instance the World Health Organization produced numerous reports contradicting to the previous ones. In their reports the disease which had been stated as having an incubation period of two days was later said to have a ten days incubation period. For another thing, the disease was at one time thought as been bacterial, besides it being viral so this made it harder to cure the disease. Additionally, the mode of transmission was said to be through immediate contact with an infected individual but later on the virus was found that it might live on surfaces for days. Communication errors also made it difficult to manage the situation; whenever a report was released by the WHO it was not marked as important but was placed in other categories as normal flues. Moreover, there was a detachment amongst organizations. The physicians could have prioritized the urgency of the reports so as to make it easier for disease prevention. In addition to the information gap, the structure of health care systems and public health in Ontario and Toronto was another root cause of this endemic. Most hospitals in Toronto operated devoid of any local health authority leading them. Also, there were no pandemic control centers that could be delegated authority in cases of an outbreak. Lastly, spokespersons conveyed inconsistent information’s and this ensued confusion. Therefore, the core problem that led to SARS getting out of hand is misinformation by the WHO. If the reports could convey genuine information then even if there was poor communication between companies, those measures could have been put in place and would have helped to curb the endemic (Berry,