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Although many of the worst food and water-borne pathogens are not endemic to Canada, Canadians are still exposed to them when they travel.
A deadly outbreak of cholera in Haiti that began in October 2010 resulted in close to 500,000 illnesses and more than 6600 deaths in the small island country within a year. Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory (NML), in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, investigated the case of a 49-year-old Canadian woman who had travelled to Haiti for her mother’s funeral. In January 2011, several days after her return from Haiti, she came to a Montréal emergency room and was diagnosed as suffering from cholera. Because Quebec has a large Haitian-born population, public health authorities had warned hospitals and clinics to watch for the disease.
Through DNA fingerprinting, the NML was able to establish that the woman, who recovered from her illness, had acquired the disease in Haiti, proving that the cholera had travelled, says NML’s Dr. Matthew Gilmour. The case emphasizes the domestic and international public health risk of disease outbreaks in other countries, according to a report published in Emerging Infectious Diseases.
ISSN 1927-0275 = Dimensions (Ottawa. Online)
