Campbellton in NB sees 13 COVID-19 cases, all linked to an infected doctor

It was on Sunday when New Brunswick’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Jennifer Russel confirmed that four residents in the Manoir de la Vallée, a long-term care facility in Altholville, have contracted the virus. This, after one of its health-care workers, tested positive for COVID-19. (File Photo by Ashkan Forouzani/Unsplash)

Two weeks with the Campbellton region in New Brunswick successfully not having any active cases of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), 13 cases were recently confirmed and these are linked to a doctor who didn’t self-isolate after traveling.

It was on Sunday when New Brunswick’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Jennifer Russel confirmed that four residents in the Manoir de la Vallée, a long-term care facility in Altholville, have contracted the virus. This, after one of its health-care workers, tested positive for COVID-19.

“An outbreak in a senior’s home is everyone’s greatest fear,” she said, as COVID-19 continues to harm several long-term care centres across Canada.

However, on Tuesday, the Public Health Department reported another case from Manoir de la Vallée, which now brings the total cases to 13.

All these active cases are being linked to Dr. Jean Robert Ngola, who went on a trip to Quebec earlier this month but did not comply with the mandatory self-isolation period of 14 days when he returned to the province. Instead, Ngola continued to see patients at the Campbellton Regional Hospital in Restigouche.

Vitalité Health Network, one of New Brunswick’s regional health authorities had suspended him while the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) are investigating him if there potential charges.

Ngola was interviewed by Radio-Canada’s La Matinale on Tuesday morning, where he said, “Perhaps it was an error in judgment.”

He admitted that he doesn’t know how he contracted the virus and said that he decided to speak out because he’s been receiving racist verbal attacks and false reports to authorities. “But I did not go to Quebec to go to take the virus and come to give it to my patients,” he continued in response to online attacks saying he’s “the bad doctor who went to get the virus to kill people here.”

Ngola said that he picked up his four-year-old daughter in Quebec because her mother had to attend a funeral in Africa. He said that his daughter also tested positive for COVID-19 and they are both in self-quarantine. They both did not show symptoms.