Rene Cardinal, a Canadian Food Inspection Agency official talking to the Canadian Press, stated Romaine lettuce is believed to be the prime suspect in four E. coli outbreaks in southwestern Ontario. 
  
Suspected in outbreaks in two other regions, romaine lettuce shows a common thread among three groups of people in Niagara i.e. those who felt ill after eating at either M.T. Bellies in Welland or the Little Red Rooster in Niagara-on-the-Lake. 
  
Doug Sider, Associate Medical Officer of Health for the Niagara Region, also confirms the E. coli and romaine lettuce link, the only thing significantly related to the two dozen E. coli cases in the area. If, the link is confirmed, it will mean health officials will have to begin tracking it to suppliers and distributors. 
  
However, the source of last month’s unrelated E. coli outbreak in North Bay is still not known. As for Niagara, Halton, Guelph and Waterloo, there have been 128-confirmed or probable cases of E. coli 0157:H7, with 14-confirmed cases in Niagara, two in Waterloo and five each in Halton and Guelph. 
  
Taking precautionary measures against an outbreak of a different strain of E. coli in North Bay, local public health officials have closed a classroom for cleaning and sanitising it, to prevent any further outbreak, after four Sunset Park Public School children belonging to the same classroom, exhibited E. coli symptoms. 
  
A North Bay Harvey restaurant linked to the E. coli outbreak has been reopened after testing negative for food and environmental contamination and being thoroughly sanitized. 
  
So far, 50 out of 251 suspected or probable E. coli 0157:H7 cases have tested positive. Every year, Ontario has about 350 E. coli cases of E. coli O157:H7, according to the province’s Ministry of Health.