As people from around the globe arrive in Toronto and festivities marking the start of the FIFA World Cup get underway, health-care staff wish to assure visitors and residents that there are key measures in place to assist keep them protected.
They’ve spent months preparing for possible threats — from mass-casualty events to outbreaks of viral illnesses akin to measles and norovirus.
Here’s what to know.
Infectious disease control
Toronto Public Medical examiners are used to working behind the scenes at major sports events and festivals in the town, however the essential difference with the World Cup is the length — greater than five weeks — and the numerous countries individuals are coming from, said Dr. Michelle Murti, the town’s medical officer of health.
“We actually are inviting the world. There was lots of replanning and planning depending on which countries we could be hosting,” she said.
Public health officials have been doing global surveillance to know which infectious diseases are common in travellers’ countries of origin, akin to measles or meningitis.
The federal government has imposed temporary travel restrictions on visitors from Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and South Sudan amid an Ebola outbreak.
Local public health authorities weren’t involved in that call and won’t comment on it, Murti said, but noted that the danger of Ebola is low and something like a norovirus outbreak is way more likely.
Norovirus, which spreads through each person-to-person contact or by eating contaminated food, causes nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.
There’s already an “uptick” of norovirus in several parts of North America, including Toronto, Murti said, so public health officials are maintaining a tally of it through increased wastewater testing near the soccer stadium, training sites and within the FIFA Fan Festival area.
Wastewater surveillance will alert staff to step up public health messages about handwashing and staying home in the event you’re sick, in addition to ensuring there are enough handwashing or hand sanitizer stations in FIFA activity areas.
Murti said also they are using wastewater to examine for early signals of measles and mpox.
Because measles is probably the most infectious viruses on this planet and symptoms may not develop for days after exposure, public health would warn those who the virus was present in a certain area and urge them to examine their vaccination status in the event that they were there. Staff would also mobilize to establish vaccine clinics if needed.
But crucial thing each Canadian and international fans should do is ensure they’re fully vaccinated against measles prematurely, she said.
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“For those who’re heading to a game, in the event you haven’t checked your vaccine status, please do get boosted in the event you haven’t had, you recognize, your two doses.”
Murti noted that fortunately, Toronto has “generally pretty high levels of vaccine coverage.”
Murti said public health can also be stepping up efforts to forestall food-borne illness — akin to norovirus, salmonella and listeriosis — at FIFA events.
“Food-borne illness outbreaks we all know is a fairly regular feature of lots of mass gathering(s) simply because it’s hot, individuals are getting lots of food from outside, possibly not form of handling food in the identical way, not washing your hands in the identical way,” she said.
Toronto Public Health developed a brand new portal where all food vendors, including food trucks, at FIFA events needed to register.
“Now we have lots of health inspectors on the bottom within the FanFest area who’re keeping a monitoring of food that’s being sold there,” and ensuring there aren’t any unauthorized vendors, she said.
They may even be watching to make sure proper food handling, each in vendors selling to the general public and kitchens preparing food for FIFA staff and volunteers.
Preparedness for a mass casualty disaster
Hospitals in Toronto all have Code Orange plans in place, where they liberate space and concentrate resources to treat large numbers of patients who’ve been injured in a disaster.
In April, The Canadian Press witnessed a mass casualty practice scenario at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, through which greater than 30 Toronto-area hospitals, police services, paramedic services, fire services and other health organizations co-ordinated prematurely of FIFA.
The fictional scenario was set before a World Cup soccer match in Toronto, with the mock-up involving fireworks set off within the midst of a giant crowd of fans marching toward the stadium. The fireworks caused burns and a crowd surge, leading to people getting crushed.
Using paper forms describing each “patient” and their injuries and dealing with the patient volumes and staffing they’d on the time, the hospitals communicated with one another to make room for a sudden influx of 277 patients.
Those measures can include cancelling elective surgeries, discharging patients who’re well enough to go away, admitting patients within the ER to other wards and organising dedicated mass trauma spaces.
Town of Toronto contracted Sunnybrook to be the host city medical lead due to its experience in emergency preparedness, said Dr. Matthew Runnalls, an emergency physician on the hospital and medical director for the FIFA World Cup in Toronto.
“The very first thing I learned (from the practice scenario) is that we feel fairly prepared,” Runnalls said.
“(The hospitals) were well organized, they were capable of answer questions on their readiness and their status in a short time. People for probably the most part knew who to call and knew who to activate,” he said.
The 2 hospitals closest to the FIFA matches and fan zone are Toronto Western Hospital and St. Joseph’s Hospital, Runnalls said. Sunnybrook, St. Michael’s Hospital and SickKids are the town’s trauma centres.
Other hospitals that participated within the practice scenario would offer backup capability as needed.
Family support in a mass casualty event
The FIFA mass casualty practice scenario also tested the power of police services and hospitals to work together to reunite patients and family members on the lookout for them.
Within the event of a disaster, hospitals would each arrange a Family Information Support Centre — or FISC — normally led by a social employee and enlisting the assistance of spiritual care and hospital volunteers.
The FISC collects names and descriptions of patients within the hospital’s care, including distinguishing features and what they’re wearing if there’s no technique to determine a patient’s name.
Additionally they collect names and descriptions from family members looking for a patient.
The hospitals’ FISC teams communicate with one another to avoid having members of the family and friends go frantically from hospital to hospital to try to search out their loved one.
Lina Gagliardi, skilled leader for social work and spiritual care at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, said working with police services can also be critical, as they keep a database of individuals injured in a disaster.
In lots of cases, police will arrange a central place for families and friends looking for family members to return as an alternative of going to individual hospitals, she said.
Still… healthcare staff excited
For a lot of health-care staff, all of the preparations have made them feel ready while hopeful there won’t be any major health emergencies.
An avid soccer fan himself, Runnalls thinks the World Cup will probably be great for the town.
“We’re really excited. It’s going to be a ton of fun,” he said.
“It’s gonna be, I believe, a very, really amazing experience.”