TORONTO - Canadian public health officials are closely watching the developments in a little-known southwestern Ontario Amish community, where polio might have made reappearance after vaccine-related exposure among its members.
This exposure is thought to have occurred through visitors from the United States. Health officials are not disclosing the exact location of this Amish community, but it is thought to be in close vicinity of the Middlesex county area where London and Woodstock are the cities. It has emerged that in October some members of the Middlesex Amish community visited an Amish settlement in Minnesota and that visit was repaid when the Americans came down for a wedding. The Minnesota settlement is battling with a mini-outbreak of vaccine related polio and Canadian health officials are concerned that it might have found a way into the country through the Amish. David Jensen, a spokesman for the Ontario Ministry of Health said that they had begun taking throat swabs, stool, saliva and urine samples from October 14.
