CANADA: Mystery Ailment Claims Fourth Victim in B.C.

SAANICH, BRITISH COLUMBIA(ctv.CA), oCTOBER 17, 2005: A mysterious ailment has claimed another victim at a Victoria-area seniors' home, bringing the death toll to four. Meanwhile, health officials are probing the cause of the outbreak at Luther Court home for the elderly in suburban Saanich, British Columbia. Three seniors -- two females and one male -- died on Wednesday. They were all in their late 80s or early 90s. The fourth victim had been taken to hospital early Thursday with similar symptoms as the three other people who died. "She died Saturday morning in the hospital, she was part of the original cluster," Karen Johnson-Lefsrud, director of care and social services, told CTV.ca. Public health officials are conducting tests focusing on respiratory illnesses such as influenza, but the cause of death has not yet been determined. Johnson-Lefsrud said results are expected as early as Monday. Dr. Murray Fyfe, a Victoria medical health officer told The Canadian Press that officials are conducting tests for a number of viral or bacterial illnesses that cause respiratory ailments. Legionnaires' disease, a pneumonia-type bacteria that recently killed 17 people at a Toronto nursing home, has not been ruled out. "It's one of the things that we're looking at," Fyfe said earlier. "The picture is a little bit different here. We don't have the heating system that would normally distribute the legionella, but still we're looking for that even though it probably is less likely than in Toronto." Luther Court is home to 30 long-term elderly residents, and a walk-in medical clinic is also located in the same building. Fyfe said that infections that are mild to most people can be fatal to the elderly, who are frail and vulnerable. While initial tests for influenza have been negative, further tests are planned, Fyfe said. The seniors' home is closed to the public until officials are certain the illness is not spreading, Johnson-Lefsrud said. © Copyright 2002-2006 Bell Globemedia Inc.