Constance Lake First Nation in state of emergency for over a year due to blastomycosis

Constance Lake First Nation in northeastern Ontario continues to live in a state of emergency more than a year after people first started to get sick with a lung infection called blastomycosis.

The infection has killed five people since November 2021, and another 46 members of the First Nation have received treatment, said Constance Lake First Nation Chief Ramona Sutherland.

Blastomyces, a fungus often found in soil and rotting wood, causes blastomycosis when it is inhaled. Symptoms include a fever, cough, night sweats, chest pain, fatigue and muscle aches.

Finding the source

Dr. Anna Banerji, an infectious disease specialist with the University of Toronto's Dalla Lana School of Public Health, told CBC News blastomycosis can be treated with a common antifungal. 

She said the disease cannot be spread between people, and only comes from the environment.

Sutherland said investigators searched around 200 locations throughout the community to find the source of the fungus that causes the disease. All their tests came back negative, but she said there's an area with a ditch that has a high probability of being the source.

Because the fungus becomes inactive in cold weather, Sutherland said they started to clean up that area in October, when it was safer to do so.

Sutherland said that in addition to blastomycosis, the small community of 800 people has seen a recent surge in COVID-19 cases, with at at least 10.

"To have another respiratory infection on top of the fungal infection, I can't even imagine how difficult it would be to breathe through all that," she said.

For around a year, the community has had a checkpoint in place where officials ask people if they have any COVID-19 symptoms. But the band council voted to lift the checkpoint ahead of the new year.

"But I think that needs to be reconsidered because of the rising numbers of COVID cases in our community," Sutherland said.