REGINA -- Coronavirus started to spread in China in December, however, the risk of the illness remains low in Saskatchewan with no confirmed cases to date.
According to the Ministry of Health, 15 people in the province have been tested for COVID-19, which is the official name given to the illness by the World Health Organization, 14 of those tested have been confirmed negative, while the Ministry still awaiting results on one.
While the risk remains low in Saskatchewan, the Health Line has received 86 calls over the past two weeks from people who have travelled from China and have questions about what they should be doing now that they're home.
"If you come from Hubei, you have to self isolate for two weeks, if you come from the rest of China, monitor your symptoms, if you're symptomatic, isolate yourself,” Dr. Saqib Shahab, Medical Health Officer for the Ministry of Health, said. “The reason we're taking all these steps is exactly that, we want to contain this if we can and we'd like this to go away like SARS did.”
There have been seven confirmed cases in Canada, however, person-to-person transmission hasn't happened, which Dr. Shahab says is a good sign.
"In many cases in Canada, the close contact have only been people in the household, so there's very little on-going risk, even if we were to have a case,” Shahab said.
Shahab adds extra-ordinary measures have been taken in china to contain the virus and health organizations will have a better idea of how effective those have been over the next couple of weeks.
Information for the public and healthcare providers is available here.
