TORONTO - Ontario confirmed seven new cases of the swine flu Thursday, bringing the total number of cases in the province to 56.
Most of those people have a "definite" travel history to Mexico, but Ontario's acting chief medical officer of health said there are some who haven't been to the country recently and don't appear to have come into contact with anyone who has travelled there.
Of the 56 confirmed cases, 12 people acquired swine flu in Ontario and nine don't know where they might have caught it, Dr. David Williams said.
Dr. Vivek Goel, president and CEO for the Ontario Agency for Health Protection and Promotion, said that's evidence of community spread, but not necessarily bad news.
"Certainly we are seeing these ... sporadic cases in the community that don't have any travel history or connection to a known case, but we're actually not seeing a lot," he said.
"The fact that we're actually only seeing a handful of cases suggests it is getting out there but it's not moving that quickly or that virulently."
The youngest confirmed case is now a three-year-old child. All of the cases are said to be mild.
A Toronto school board has said one of its students at a west-end secondary school has been diagnosed with swine flu but is doing well.
A worker at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto is recovering at home after contracting the H1N1 virus. A spokeswoman said the employee was not providing patient care.
The new incidents of the virus reported Thursday were in communities that had previously reported cases: Toronto, York and Peel regions and Sudbury.
Thirty women and 25 men in Ontario have contracted the virus. The identity of the 56th case wasn't immediately available.
Ontario reports an average of 9,000 cases of seasonal flu each year and approximately 500 deaths.
This H1N1 influenza actually appears to be less communicable than a seasonal flu, Williams said.
"This is looking mild, like a mild flu season -- in fact milder than our regular one to some extent," he said.
