The potential source of outbreak of malignant legonars in London, Ontaras, has become more ill

The possible source of constant outbreak of legonarsh disease that has killed four people and sent around 90 people to the hospital in London, Onts has been determined.

The Middlesex-Landon Health Unit (MLhu) said on Tuesday that it matches the bacterial subtype that can cause symptoms such as pneumonia among the people of Sofina Foods Ink, a meat-psychiatry plant, which employs hundreds of workers in the eastern end of the city.

The Health Unit wrote in a statement, “During the investigation of the broader case, the environmental sampling and collaboration with the building operators, several cooling towers at nine separate places in London conducted a positive test for live Legionela bacteria.” “The results of further tests in Sofina Foods Inc. were found to match the sub -availability associated with the outbreak.”

The health unit announced the outbreak on 6 August after a three -week period, which was not confirmed any new cases, in an interview with the Health Unit’s Associate Medical Officer of Health on Tuesday in an interview with CBC News.

Since then, however, 25 new cases have been reported, from which the outbreak has been rebuilt.

“We hoped that the remarks made by the operators earlier this year were enough to end the outbreak, but with several weeks in the summer, the bacteria began to recur again and started recurring again,” Keron said.

The scope of MLhu investigation, starting in early July, was huge, in which people became ill within a six -kilometer radius across the city. At one point, the health unit found positive bacteria inside cooling towers at Victoria Hospital, the largest medical center of the region.

Sofina says that previous test showed ‘negative results’

In a statement by CBC News, Sofina Food’s Chief Security Officer Sharon Begley said “the company is deeply committed to our employees, our products and community health and safety,” and it will continue to work with MLHU to fully address its findings. ,

The release stated, “Knowing the strong daily security and hygiene programs and testing, and negative results from the previous test, the most recent results were” from MLHU “were unpredictable,” said in the release. “We are deeply concerned with this new information and we are continuing its thorough investigation.”

The release states that Sofina Foods “follows MLHU guidance and is working with our external experts who have expertise in the field, and who administrations of cleaning and maintaining our regular cooling tower.”

“We took immediate action as soon as Mlhu shared its findings with us. Above and above its regular processes, we conducted deep cleaning and disinfected processes recommended by Mlhu.”

The company said that the cooling tower is offline and will remain so until the additional work is completed. “We will continue the test to ensure that any risk has been terminated.”

Expected more cases due to incubation period

Legonela is not transmitted from a person to another person or through eating or drinking. If the bacteria are earosol or blurred in the air (through air or through fans), people can breathe and become unwell.

The health unit stated that bacteria occur naturally in soil and water, and may contaminate and grow in the environment, including warm tubs, cooling towers, warm water tanks and parts of the commercial air-conditioning system.

Most of the people who come in contact with Legyonela are not ill, but some people may experience Pontik fever, a light, flu -like disease that usually resolves themselves.

The health unit said that till date, outbreaks have been linked to “severe pneumonia” among at least 94 London residents. At least 86 have been hospitalized and four have died. Six people remained in the hospital till Tuesday.

“We are continue to receive the ongoing cases,” Kiron said. “Legonela has a two to 10 -day incubation period … there may still be further cases in the next two weeks.”

It is not clear how many of the cases or deaths can be Sofina workers.

“I can’t talk to how many straight work is associated with Sofina,” she said. Sofina Foods did not respond to a follow -up investigation.

The health unit began to look at new cases “several days” after the outbreak was declared, but it was not immediately clear whether they were isolated or associated with wrath, they said. Spring cases are expected every year, usually five to six in summer.

“We did not disclose this at that time because we wanted the time to visit cooling towers before informing the operators, we would visit and we would need further disinfection. Disinfection procedures can sometimes produce false negatives.”

Until then no source was confirmed when the outbreak was initially declared, but Sofina Foods was identified as a possible source, when the health unit withdrew the high -risk cooling towers, Keron said.

He said that the decision of the health unit to join publicly came out of the need to assure the public and to be transparent in view of the size of the outbreak.

Kearon said Sofina Foods were fully co-operating through investigation and had disinfected cooling towers before this heat, some health officials hoped that there would be enough.

“However, in such cases, where the outbreak is so large, there is a risk that is actually a layer of bacteria that needs to be physically removed from the system. The same Sofina is currently doing with her contractor,” she said.

“We are sure that complete physical remedies have occurred, and then we will test on a constant basis to ensure that it is not again.”

Health officials have also determined that this facility was a possible source of outbreak of last year’s Legonaires disease, killing two people and 30 others became ill.

This year, the same samples taken from infected people were seen in the last year’s outbreak, he said.

Although other cooling towers conducted a positive test for Legyonela bacteria within the six -kilometer radius, only the bacteria subtlefall found in Sofina had a match with the samples of the case, Cairon said.