Alberta’s chief medical officer of health, Dr. Mark Joffe, has announced the discovery of additional daycare sites in Calgary where children have tested positive for E. coli. As a precautionary measure, these facilities will be closed. The sites will undergo thorough cleaning and sanitization, and all children will be tested to confirm their negative status before they can return to the center.
All facility operators have been notified, and parents of children at these facilities will be directly informed as soon as possible by the operators working with Alberta Health Services. It is important to note that some of the children who tested positive at the new centers are connected to daycares from the original outbreak.
The additional facilities affected are Active Start Country Hills, the Scenic Acres location of CanCare Childcare, CEFA Early Learning Childcare North, MTC Daycare, Renert Junior Kindergarten, and Calgary JCC Child Care. Furthermore, Vik Academy, which had previously reopened after being closed, is once again shut down as a precaution pending further testing results.
The statement empathizes with the parents involved in this distressing situation and urges them to follow the guidance provided by healthcare professionals. If their daycare is closed, parents are requested to keep their children at home and only send them to another facility if they have tested negative for E. coli and show no symptoms.
In addition, the statement urges all daycare operators in the Calgary region to verify the health and daycare history of children who are new to their facility. Through collective effort and adherence to health guidance, it is believed that the outbreak can be contained.
As of now, there have been 337 lab-confirmed cases related to the E. coli outbreak declared on September 4. Twelve children remain hospitalized, with ten of them experiencing hemolytic uremic syndrome, a complication affecting the blood and kidneys. Six of these children are receiving dialysis treatment.