Two residents of a retirement home in Ottawa have died in an ongoing one-month epidemic at the home.
Ottawa Public Health says officials are investigating the City View retirement community outbreak in Nepian, and by noon on Tuesday, there were four confirmed cases among residents of the home, including the two who died.
Listeria is rarely spread from person to person, and bacteria usually come from contaminated foods, including raw (unpasteurized) milk, soft cheeses, raw vegetables, melons, and ready-to-eat meats such as hot dogs, pates, and delicacies.
Bacteria can also be transferred from one food to another through improper food handling and can grow into chilled food, according to the OPH website.
This is a 3D illustration of the bacterium Listeria that causes listeriosis. Two residents of the retirement home have died after eating food contaminated with listeria. (Katerina Kon / Shutterstock)
The high-risk foods listed above were removed from the home menu on May 4, according to OPH, and it has requested and continues to require daily communication from the facility through lists of lines and phone calls if necessary.
OPH said it has also carried out 10 on-site visits in the last month, including a number of food safety and follow-up inspections, as well as at least one audit of the critical hazard analysis checkpoint.
The investigation was supported by Ontario Public Health, as well as its laboratories and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
OPH provided food samples and samples of environmental tampons to the provincial laboratory, which needed about a week to provide preliminary results and an additional week to provide final results.
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