The Via Rail train quarantined by Canadian authorities after
a passenger woman died and up to six others complained of flu-like symptoms arrived
in Toronto on
Saturday.
The train carrying 264 passengers and 30 crewmembers, sat
for 10 hours in Foleyet, a small town in Ontario
while health investigators tried to determine what killed the 60-year-old Australian
woman, and why six other passengers became ill around her. Officials were
keeping passengers from leaving the train, Steve Trinier, the director of
ambulance services in the area, said, as quoted by CNN. He also added that the mysterious
disease could be something as simple as food poisoning.
According to Dr. David Williams, Ontario’s chief medical officer, the woman
who died on the train did not have an infectious disease and the illnesses were
unrelated. “The origin of the illness that caused the passenger death is
unknown at this time. Lab tests to date have eliminated a number of serious
infectious illnesses,” he said.
However, Donald Low, a microbiologist at Toronto’s
Mount Sinai Hospital said he suspected influenza. “This
really points to something like influenza…Obviously this is a pretty acute
event, a number of individuals sick with respiratory illness. We’re not talking
SARS, we’re not talking avian influenza…We see this happen on cruise ships and
other settings when you have people together in close confines,” he said.
The train arrived in Toronto
on Saturday morning after resuming its journey late Friday afternoon. The investigation
is ongoing.
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