{"id":663227,"date":"2026-05-11T23:17:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T23:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/663227\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T23:17:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T23:17:08","slug":"third-person-isolating-in-ontario-is-in-peel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/663227\/","title":{"rendered":"Third person isolating in Ontario is in Peel"},"content":{"rendered":"

A third person now in isolation in Ontario because of the hantavirus is in Peel Region, Health Minister Sylvia Jones confirms.<\/p>\n

Ontario health officials said Friday that two people from the same household<\/a> were isolating in the Grey-Bruce counties area. Jones said that couple continues to be asymptomatic. <\/p>\n

Federal health officials said Friday a third person from Ontario may have had brief contact with a confirmed case on a flight. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe couple in Gray-Bruce absolutely is still self-isolating. They continue to be asymptomatic and obviously the local public health unit is monitoring closely,\u201d Jones said Monday. \u201cWe do have a third individual in the Peel Region who is also isolating and being monitored by the local public health unit.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement, Peel Public Health said it is monitoring one person who had contact with a confirmed case, but clarified that person is a visitor to Canada rather than a resident of Peel Region. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe person is currently well and has no symptoms. They are staying in isolation and are receiving daily support from Peel Public Health,\u201d the health unit said in its statement. \u201cWe have clear protocols in place to support this person during quarantine and to ensure timely access to health care if needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The statement said the risk to the broader Peel community is \u201cvery low\u201d and that residents do not need to take any additional precautions. <\/p>\n

Health officials have said that hantavirus, a rare, but potentially deadly disease, does not spread easily from person-to-person. According to the World Health Organization<\/a>, the disease is usually spread through contact with the urine, feces or saliva of infected rats. <\/p>\n

So far, an outbreak associated with an Atlantic cruise ship, the MV Hondius, has resulted in eight cases, including three deaths. <\/p>\n

People in isolation not being tested for now<\/p>\n

Jones said that while the three individuals are following isolation protocols, they are not being tested at the moment. <\/p>\n

\u201cInitial conversations and feedback, knowledge from Dr. Kieran Moore, suggests that testing on asymptomatic (people) may not have the appropriate results.\u201d Jones said. \u201cIt may not be the best way to monitor. That\u2019s why these three individuals are self-isolating, so we can see if there are any symptoms that come forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Sumon Chakrabarti, an infectious diseases specialist at Trillium Health Partners in Mississauga, told CTV News Monday it\u2019s important to distinguish between those who are being monitored for symptoms and those who have actually become ill. <\/p>\n

\u201cThese people, it\u2019s very important to say that they\u2019re not individuals who are having symptoms, necessarily. They\u2019re being monitored if they develop symptoms. And this is exactly what the protocol entails,\u201d Chakrabarti said. <\/p>\n

Ontario\u2019s Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Kieran Moore has said the province received best practices from Argentina around possible incubation periods for hantavirus since that country has more experience dealing with the virus and plans to monitor contacts for 45 days. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to also remember that this is a relatively rare type of infection, so we are still learning from it,\u201d Chakrabarti said. \u201cAnd when you have such a long incubation period, you have to be careful that you have to watch people for the entire time.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he emphasized that even if the virus is able to spread from person-to-person, \u201cit\u2019s not like COVID\u201d in terms of the ease of transmission. <\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the other hantaviruses do not transmit from person to person. This strain just happens to,\u201d Chakrabarti said. \u201cIt looks like the viral sequence of this (strain), the DNA sequence is pretty much the same. It\u2019s a little bit different, but I\u2019m not worried about this really changing, in a major extent, turning into something like a pandemic virus.\u201d<\/p>\n

He described the outbreak associated with the MV Hondius as occurring from a \u201cperfect storm\u201d of circumstances and doesn\u2019t see it as a failure of the system. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that these types of things exist in the environment,\u201d Chakrabarti said, noting that in part that\u2019s why epidemiology exists.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf anything, they were able to identify it fairly quickly once they saw two deaths on the ship. But again, these things happen sporadically. That\u2019s why we study them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A third person now in isolation in Ontario because of the hantavirus is in Peel Region, Health Minister…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":662648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[712,49,48,84],"class_list":["post-663227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-apple-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=663227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/662648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=663227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=663227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=663227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}