Dr. Donald Low, leading figure in Toronto’s response to SARS, dead at 68
One of the key figures in Canada’s battle against SARS has died. Dr. Donald Low, who became a trusted face and voice of the response effort, died Wednesday. Low, 68, was diagnosed with a brain tumour earlier this year.
A native of Winnipeg, Low was credited by friends and colleagues for both his contribution to the SARS response and for advancing the practice of microbiology and infectious diseases across Canada.
He had a keen mind and loved to puzzle out intriguing new developments in infectious diseases. Over the course of his career he coauthored nearly 400 peer-reviewed articles for scientific journals, 41 book chapters and almost 100 invited articles.
Low was a global expert in flesheating disease — necrotizing fasciitis — caused by group A Streptococcus. He was also an early and passionate champion of the need to combat antibiotic resistance by prudent use of the drugs.
But it was through the 2003 SARS outbreak that he became a familiar face to Canadians. While he had no formal leadership role on the response team, his capacity to explain through the media to the public what was going on in the fast-moving outbreak made Low the face of Toronto’s SARS response.
Treasury Board president Tony Clement, who was Ontario’s health minister during the SARS outbreak, expressed his sorrow at hearing of Low’s death.
“Saddened to hear the news of Dr Donald Low’s passing. I worked extensively with him during the SARS outbreak. Wonderful guy,” Clement said on Twitter.
At one point during the SARS outbreak, Low had to go into quarantine, because he’d been in contact with a colleague who came down with SARS. He worked from home and emerged, 14 days later, without developing the disease. He would later marvel that he never caught SARS, given the amount of exposure he had to cases throughout the outbreak.
Putting in long hours over many weeks, he visibly dropped weight during the outbreak, prompting concerned strangers who saw him on TV news reports to write to ask after his health.
While he was always cognizant of the fact that SARS ended 44 lives in Ontario and permanently altered others, for Low, a microbiologist, being at an epicentre of the outbreak of a new infectious disease was a career highlight.
In an interview in late February about the 10th anniversary of SARS, Low described the outbreak as “the most amazing experience ever.”
“In the first week or so it was quite exciting,” he said, his voice raspy from the drugs he was taking to try to shrink the tumour.
“We were dealing with something that was international. It was in Toronto. We thought we had a handle on it. We didn’t think it was going to go crazy. You know, this was fun. And we got a call from the New England Journal of Medicine saying, ‘We want a manuscript.’ What else could you ask for?”
It quickly became apparent, though, that SARS had spread further into the city’s network of hospitals than Low and others initially realized. It took four months to bring the disease under control. “It was a very, very, very tough time.”
Low studied at the University of Manitoba, getting his science degree and his degree in medicine there. He is survived by his wife, Maureen Taylor, and by three children from a previous marriage.