Toronto Public Health confirms first three cases of Omicron variant in city’s new case report database
This is the first case of variant in Toronto.
Toronto’s city-wide surveillance system has found the city’s first three cases of Omicron variant, an emerging virus caused by an enterovirus 71, a respiratory illness that can cause symptoms similar to those of the common cold.
The virus has been reported in more than 100 countries, but is most prevalent in southern and eastern Africa, where the disease is the second most common cause of childhood paralysis, accounting for more than half of cases.
Toronto Public Health’s epidemiology unit confirmed the first three cases of Omicron variant on June 29 and the first patient in the city’s new case report database.
The cases were confirmed in Toronto through three laboratory testing protocols, with each patient tested in the hospital’s infectious disease unit, in a hospital infectious disease unit and, additionally, through a hospital clinical microbiology lab, the health unit said.
The three patients were identified in the city’s new case report database, which was launched in April. The new online format of the database will help provide “accurate and timely information and public health actions” to the City of Toronto and the public, Mayor John Tory said in a statement issued by the health unit.
The cases are the first in Toronto in the last two weeks.
Toronto Public Health also has confirmed 27 cases of Omicron variant worldwide, three of them among Canadians, including the first two cases of the virus in the country, said Dr. Howard Cohen, medical director of the centre’s infectious diseases unit.
The three Toronto cases were identified through a number of different laboratory test protocols, the health unit said.
The virus is most widespread in southern and eastern Africa, where it is second only to measles as a cause of childhood paralysis, accounting for more than half of cases.
Since June 16, 2012, Toronto Public Health has been working with partners to develop and implement enhanced surveillance and outbreak investigations related to Omicron variant, including through enhanced surveillance for cases of the virus that were reported between June 16, 2012 and July 21, 2016.
In a city-
