Toronto Nursing Home respiratory illness Deaths!!!

This is terrible :

Mystery virus kills 4 at Toronto nursing home
By ANDREW DAVIDSON

TORONTO (CP) - Public health officials are investigating the deaths of four people from a "typical respiratory illness" at an east-end senior's residence, but say the outbreak is not SARS.

The four victims were residents at the Seven Oaks Home for the Aged in the city's east end, said Dr. Barbara Yaffe, Toronto Public Health's director of communicable disease control.

"We know from the testing that's been done so far that this is not influenza, we know this is not SARS, we know this is not avian influenza," said Dr. Allison McGeer, infectious disease consultant at Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital.

"There are many other viruses it could be ... and the Ontario Public Health lab is working very hard on identifying which one of those viruses it might be."

The unidentified illness has affected 68 residents and five employees at facility.

Three of the victims died at the home while the fourth died in hospital, she said.

Yaffe said all of the four victims had severe pre-existing medical conditions. Two were in their 90s, another in the late 70s, and the fourth in the 50s.

She said outbreaks are typical but this one set off alarms because of its severity.

"We get hundreds of outbreaks every year, however in this situation we do have a particularly serious outbreak," Yaffe said.

She said 15 people have been admitted to hospitals in the area, but are not being quarantined.

"There is no quarantine necessary for this," Yaffe said, and emphasized that there was no threat to the greater public.

The speed with which the illness spread led McGeer to speculate whether a presence of bacteria within the home contributed to the outbreak.

Yaffe also added that while this outbreak was serious, it was not the worst in recent memory. Last year, 11 people died after an outbreak at a Cobourg, Ont., nursing home, she said.

CFTO News reported that the first signs of the most recent illness were detected Tuesday, but no residents were taken to hospital until Saturday night.

Dozens of family members were prevented from entering the home Saturday.

Emergency room staff at Centenary Hospital donned gowns and masks Saturday as a procedural precaution - a standard practice in Ontario hospitals after the SARS outbreak in 2003.

"Either people haven't been following precautions that we are supposed to follow now for all people with fever or respiratory illness . . . or alternatively, somebody had brought it in from the community to the nursing home and they weren't really that sick from it," infectious disease specialist Dr. Neil Rau said.

Symptoms of the illness include fever, cough, runny nose, and malaise, McGeer said.

She said the best way for the public to prevent such outbreaks occurring is to wash their hands thoroughly and frequently.