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Ontario warns doctors to watch for drug-resistant bug

Last Updated: Friday, November 9, 2007 | 12:59 PM ET

Ontario is warning its doctors to watch out for the country's most drug-resistant version of a particular strain of bacteria that sent a Toronto toddler to intensive care with meningitis earlier this week.

The bacteria isolated from a child hospitalized with bacterial meningitis at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children belongs to a strain of Streptococcus pneumoniae known as 19A. According to the head of the Alberta laboratory where the bacteria was serotyped, it is the most drug-resistant type of that bacteria the centre has ever seen in Canada.

"We have seen 19As that are resistant to various antibiotics," said Greg Tyrrell, director of the National Centre for Streptococcus at the University of Alberta. "But we haven't seen a 19A this resistant before."

For that reason, Ontario's acting chief medical officer of health David Williams will send out a notice to the province's doctors by Saturday. The alert will ask physicians to report any similar cases, and also provide advice on how to handle them.

"It's basically just going to provide any updated information that we've gathered from the Sick Kids case that can help doctors or public health officials get tips on what to look out for or what they need to do if they have a potential case," health ministry spokesman David Jensen told CBC News.

The ministry has recorded 48 cases of 19A pneumococcus since last December, however, "this is the first drug-resistant case," Jensen said. He would not speculate on the probability of finding more.

Officials at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children on Wednesday confirmed a young child was being treated for meningitis caused by a multi-drug resistant strain of the Streptococcus pneumoniae bacteria. The child did not contract the bacteria at the hospital.

By Thursday, doctors began treating the ill child with powerful antibiotics not usually used on children. A spokesperson for the hospital said the child no longer required intensive care, but would not provide any more information on the child's condition due to privacy concerns.   

No need for alarm, officials say

Despite the highly resistant nature of the bacteria, Tyrrell said he does not see the need for alarm.

"From my perspective, this is just another pneumococcal isolate that has quite a bit of antibiotic resistance."

In an interview with CBC on Thursday, Williams also emphasized that this was an isolated case and not an outbreak.

Although this strain of bacteria first appeared in Toronto in 2004, it has not caused meningitis before now. Tyrrell said the variant has likely been gaining resistance to antibiotics since its discovery three years ago. 

"The number of 19As they've seen in the Toronto area seems to be a single clone that slowly over time is acquiring more antibiotic resistance," he said.

"So that's probably what this is. This is just probably something that's circulating down there and becoming slowly over time a little more resistant."

With files from the Canadian Press

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