The Northwestern Health Unit yesterday declared Influenza A outbreaks in five facilities across both the Rainy River and Kenora districts, including at Rainycrest Home for the Aged here.
The other facilities where outbreaks have been identified include Atikokan General Hospital, Birchwood Terrace Nursing Home and Lake of the Woods District Hospital in Kenora, and Meno-Ya-Win Health Centre in Sioux Lookout.
This means visiting is restricted at all of these facilities.
The restriction will not be lifted until eight days after there is no sign of the virus in patients or residents at these specific locations, Bill Limerick, director of environmental health for the health unit, said this morning.
Dr. Pete Sarsfield, CEO and medical officer of health for the local health unit, noted the outbreaks were declared “as an important infection control measure to reduce the risk and spread of Influenza A to the patients, residents, and staff of these facilities.
“Visitor restrictions are in place because of the potential risk of spreading the illness from the community to vulnerable patients, residents, and staff within the facility, or visitors acquiring the illness within the facility and taking it back into the community,” he noted.
“As a result of the outbreak, the health unit office has been getting calls from people wanting to get ’flu shots,” Limerick said, adding the health unit still has an adequate vaccine supply at the moment.
Those who want a shot can call their local health unit office. The one here is offering shots by appointment every Wednesday.
Limerick said the health unit has not yet made a link between the number of people who didn’t get ’flu shots earlier this winter and those who are coming down with the ’flu now.
He noted some of the people showing symptoms now did get vaccinated. But he also said there’s proof those who got their ’flu shot had less severe symptoms than those who didn’t.
Limerick noted the health unit has identified the virus as “Influenza A,” but the strain hasn’t yet been “typed” (as A/Fujian, B/Shanghai, etc.)
The vaccine the health unit has been administering this winter contains three viral strains—A/New Caledonia, A/Wyoming (like the A/Fujian strain prevalent last winter), and B/Jiangsu (similar to the B Shanghai strain).
According to the health unit, the ’flu is a respiratory tract illness with symptoms including cough, sore throat, tiredness, muscle aches, loss of appetite, headache, chills, and fever.
Influenza spreads easily from the infected persons through coughing and sneezing. It also spreads through direct contact with surfaces contaminated by the virus, such as toys, eating utensils, and unwashed hands.
Immunization, frequent hand-washing, and remaining at home if you have signs or symptoms of the ’flu are the main methods to prevent the spread of this disease.
As reported in Monday’s Daily Bulletin, Rainycrest already had put visiting restrictions in place Sunday after 16 residents there were diagnosed with respiratory problems.
It then was reported in Tuesday’s Daily Bulletin that Riverside Health Care Facilities, Inc. also was putting visiting restrictions in place at all three hospitals in the district “due to increased incidence of respiratory illness in the community.”
No ’flu outbreak has been identified at any of these three facilities.
Similarly, Dryden Regional Health Centre began barring visitors as a precautionary measure yesterday.
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
