Council of Canadian Academies has published a new report entitled,
"Influenza Transmission and the Role of Personal Protective
Respiratory Equipment--an assessment of the evidence."
This report comes in response to a proposal submitted by the Public
Health Agency of Canada that asked the Council to investigate how
seasonal and pandemic influenza are transmitted and, based on those
findings, to assess the contribution of respirators and surgical masks
to the prevention of transmission of the virus. The report of the study
represents the consensus findings of a 13-member panel of experts,
chaired by Donald Low, microbiologist-in-chief at Mount Sinai Hospital
in Toronto, ON. The report and its summary document the Report in Focus
are available in both official languages and are accessible on the
Council's Web site at www.scienceadvice.ca.
Council of Canadian Academies
COPYRIGHT 2008 Chemical Institute of
Canada Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.
Copyright 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning. All rights
reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.
NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.