uh first your reaction to the news of a case in Canada it's awful to hear obviously this is a very sad case someone succumbed to this illness um and and as we just heard Eastern equine and sephtis is an extremely rare infection but it it it can happen and uh it's horrible to hear of a case in Canada especially with a poor outcome like this so provide some more insight for us what do people know what is Triple E and how does it spread Jeremy touched on a little bit yeah so this is a viral infection it was initially discovered in the 1930s the reason it's called Eastern equine and sephtis is because it was initially discovered in the eastern United States in Massachusetts uh in a horse equine and it causes an En sephtis which means an inflammation of the brain mosquitoes can pick up this virus from birds that have this infection and then the mosquitoes can bite other animals for example humans as we heard in this case and horses are also pretty uh susceptible to developing severe infection um there's no vaccine there's no dedicated antiviral treatment uh the treatment for this is supportive care of the people who pick up this virus about five five or so percent will uh get this inflammation of the brain if that does happen it can be deadly about a third of cases will die and and even if people recover they're typically left with neurologic dysfunction but as we heard earlier it's extraordinarily rare you know between 2003 and 2022 there were roughly 200 reported cases of this so rare but but deadly the key issue here is prevention of mosquito bites to prevent infection rare and this is a case in Ottawa of course we have viewers from coast to coast is this something that other people outside the Capal region outside Ottawa need to know about need to uh be worried about what is the level of concern in the Ottawa area and then further a field so what's interesting about the Ottawa area was that there was a a horse that was identified as having this infection in the summertime so there were already warnings and public health warnings about mosquitoes that could carry and transmit this infection in the region um you know it it it's not all that common there's a lot of good reasons to prevent mosquito bites one they're itchy and we don't like them two there's a much more common virus West Nile virus that uh that is circulating that most people will have a mild infection but there are rare serious complications of that and then number three Eastern equine and sephtis which is extraordinarily rare is it here yep but it's just it's just not all that common but again no one wants a mosquito bite for any reason uh and the best thing to do is wear long sleeves and long pants of course that's not practical if it's you know 30 degrees Celsius so the insect repellant do a very good job commercial available products like 30% DEET or 20% iic cardan Which are you know available just about everywhere in the country uh they do a great job of course you got to be reapplied if someone's outdoors and sweating or if they jumped in a pool or a lake and come out but in general that does a remarkable job in preventing infection and and mosquito bites which can transmit infection all right great Insight on this Dr Isaac bogos an infectious disease specialist thanks so much for your time on this my pleasure