Cablegate: Toronto "Mystery" Flu Illness Identified As

This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

UNCLAS TORONTO 002615

SIPDIS

STATE FOR WHA/CAN, CA/OCS, M/MED, and M/DASHO
HHS FOR OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY, OFFICE OF
INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS (STEIGER), CDC FOR GLOBAL HEALTH
OFFICE (COX)

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: AMED SOCI TBIO ECON CA CASC KPAO
SUBJECT: Toronto "Mystery" Flu Illness Identified as
Legionnaire's Disease

Ref: (A) Toronto 0153 (B) Toronto 2602
(C) Toronto 2614

1. On October 6 late in the afternoon Ontario public
officials announced that the mystery illness in Toronto
that has attracted international media attention and
killed 16 seniors in a nursing home had just been
identified as a particular strain of Legionnaire's
disease that could only be detected by culture and
serology procedures. Forty urinary tests had shown
negative results earlier, but tissue samples from the
lungs of three of the deceased tested positive for
legionella pneumophila by mid-day on Thursday, October
6.

2. Both David McKeown, Toronto's Medical Officer of
Health, and Donald Low, the new medical director of the
Ontario Public Health Lab who himself collected the
lung tissue samples for culture, assured the public in
their interviews late October 6 that the disease was an
environmental contamination ("an aerosolization") that
would remain under investigation (the ventilation
system in the nursing home has been shut down;
antibiotics distributed), and that the general
population was not at risk. For the third day in a
row there have been no new cases, though 40 people
remain hospitalized and a few more deaths could be
expected. There have been only 13 cases of
Legionnaires' disease in Ontario in the past five
years.

3. The Premier, the Mayor of Toronto and the
provincial health minister have also made statements to
assure the public that the disease is not contagious
through personal contact; however, the plane crash in
Winnipeg carrying flu virus samples has attracted
attention here and, with the upcoming conference in
Ottawa on pandemics, will likely keep the public
concern level high. An October 7 editorial in the
"Toronto Star," the largest newspaper in the country,
credits public health officials and politicians for
putting to use hard-won lessons learned from the 2003
SARs and hopes that international media will extend
this credit in as high a profile as it gave to the
initial outbreak.

LECROY

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