Suspect H5N1 Patient in Rimouski Quebec Canada?

(CP) - The power of the Internet rumour mill slammed up against a hospital in Rimouski, Que., on Wednesday, leaving infection control specialists and pediatricians bewildered by claims they were treating a child gravely ill with H5N1 avian flu.

Dr. Patrick Dolce, the hospital's head of microbiology, confirms there is no case of H5N1 flu in the hospital.

Dolce says the hospital doesn't even have a pediatric patient suffering from any respiratory illness.

"This is totally untrue. There is no case of respiratory illness in any children right now in the hospital. No cases at all," Dolce said.

He added that when he raised the rumours with a colleague, the infectious disease specialist on duty Wednesday, "she laughed at me."

Several Internet websites on pandemic influenza reported rumours that North America had its first human "bird flu" case in an unlikely spot - Rimouski, a city of about 42,000 people on the St. Lawrence River north of Quebec City.

Hospital administrators, who were initially unaware of the rumours, took some perplexing calls. A concerned man identifying himself as a physician called from Italy to check out the reports.

Dolce says the rumours are entirely untrue.