Toronto: Home of Mysterious Illnesses

Who doesn't remember the SARS epedimic of a couple of years back that was found in Chinatown of Toronto. The city was put into quarantine by the World Health Organization (WHO) and became at that time the only city in the Americas to receive this label. The city lost large quantities of money at the drop of tourism and its Chinatown lost visits and money of those other Toronto residents who'd go in to shop and eat.

At the beginning of this month (Sunday, October 2) a new illness, similar to the flu, appeared again in Toronto setting off allarms. Toronto, as I said before, already knew the consequences that a new illness can cause not only on the people it infects, but in society as a whole.

On that date, the Toronto Star reported: Flu-like Illness Kills 4 At A Nursing Home. And that is when I begun to follow this event since it also appeared on Canadian television. This in spite of 4 deaths (mostly elderly people) and 73 infections (between staff and nursing home inhabitants) since September 25.

The illness started to be known as the Seven Oaks Flu from the name of the nursing home where it started and also because of the worrisome fact that no one knew exactly what the illness was. It was presumed viral (wit flu like symptoms like fever & cough) and tests showed that it was not SARS nor avian flu. It was then decided not to place the nursing home under full quarantine.

On Monday, October 3, the TV media started to give the "mysterious" illness more coverage. The Toronto Star reported four more cases of infection (77 in total now) within Seven Oaks. The identity of the illness continued to be a mystery and authorities explained that it was difficult to pin the identity down since it could be one out of a hundred possible respiratory illnesses. Seven Oaks was put further into quarantine but we were assured that the rest of the population in Toronto was not at risk.

In a state of tense calm, we arrived at Wednesday. On this day the news of the mysterious illness started to reach international ears. CNN started showing small reports about the illness during their news hours. Meanwhile in Canada, another four died at Seven Oaks (read article). With that, the death count mounted to 10 (still mostly elderly people) and the count of people infected reached 82. Nevertheless, the quarantine was lifted and there were reports that 40 of the 82 sick were spread out in different hospitals in Toronto under isolation. The illness ended the day still being "mysterious".

I would like to point out that up to this point the Canadian media (both TV and press) continued to portray the situation with relative calm. Perhaps they were all scared to create a SARS like scare for Toronto again. Perhaps because the illness had proven not to leave the nursing home in Scarborough. No matter what the reason, as a resident of Toronto I began to worry that no one knew what the illness was still. The media claimed that these outbreaks happened often. But still, these outbreaks where reported to infect 10 to 15 people at the most and had a low mortality rate. That was something not evident in this mysterious illness. The only positive thing was that indeed, the illness had not left the nursing home.

On October 6, the Toronto Star reported another 6 deaths! The death count mounted now to 16. Everything was still proclaimed as "under control" and the optimists claimed the good news that no new cases of infection had been reported. Nevertheless, the international media attention did not go on this optimistic road. Besides CNN, reports started arriving in Australia (news article by the ABC) and then picked up by the Associated Press who then went on to distribute the news around the US and the world.

Finally, and perhaps thanks to this last bit of international pressure, the medical community in Canada identified the mysterious disease. On October 7 on the Toronto Star's first page it was reported that: Health Officials Confident That The Deaths Were Caused By 'Legionnaires'. Finally, after 17 deaths, the identity of the mysterious illness ws revealed.

WebMD describes this illness as "an respiratory illness similiar to pneumonia caused by bacterias" and though its main affected area is the respiratory system; it can also create other sorts of complications. The mystery of how the infection came to be was also solved. You catch the infection only through breathing it through the environment and not by contact with other people infected.

And that's how the story of this mysterious illness apparently ends in this lovely city which seems to be a magnet for the most unwanted types of mysteries.