Six now dead, dozens ill in T.O. mystery outbreak

Toronto health officials are scrambling to reassure the public that the mystery illness claiming lives at a Toronto nursing home is not out of control, despite the fact the death toll has continued to rise... ( Oct 4th)

Mystery T.O. outbreak Despite repeated assurances the mysterious illness at a Toronto nursing home is contained and on the wane, the city is being painfully reminded of the 2003 SARS outbreak.

According to the city's medical officer of health, Dr. David McKeown, the virulent respiratory infection that has claimed 16 lives and sickened more than 80 others is no cause for alarm. (Oct 6th)

"This outbreak is a severe example of what is really a very common problem," Dr. McKeown told CTV's Canada AM, acknowledging the outbreak at Seven Oaks Home for the Aged is the deadliest to strike an Ontario nursing home since 1998.

"There are about 1,000 outbreaks of this type in long-term care facilities every year (in Ontario), though few of them reach the proportions that this one has."

With no new cases reported in the last 24 hours, McKeown said early Thursday that he knows transmission of the illness is "slowing down and stopping."

"We started from a peak of about 20 cases a day late last week to -- in the past 24 hours -- no new cases. That's how we know."

Since the outbreak began on Sept. 25, 70 residents, 13 employees and five visitors have become ill. Of the 38 who remain in hospital, 34 are Seven Oaks residents, two are staff, and two were visitors to the east end nursing home.

"The name of this disease might make people nervous, but here's what it means: This disease cannot be transferred from person to person," Miller said. "There is not, and there never was, a threat to the general population. This disease is environmental. It is not contagious."