N.B. to hold briefing to update investigation into mysterious neurological syndrome

New Brunswick is providing an update on a cluster of residents with an unknown and potentially new neurological syndrome on Wednesday afternoon.

The briefing — which will include Health Minister Dorothy Shephard, Dr. Natalie Banville, vice-president of medical affairs for Vitalité Health Network and Dr. Susan Brien, vice-president medical, academic and research affairs for Horizon Health Network — will take place at 2 p.m. AT.

The event will be live-streamed here.

In March, New Brunswick health officials alerted the province’s doctors, nurses and pharmacists about the cluster. The cluster involved around 50 cases, and eight people have died in that group since 2019.

Symptoms are described as being similar to those of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

The New Brunswick government launched a website in April to update the public on what it called a “neurological syndrome of unknown cause.”

A study led by Dr. Gerard Jansen of the University of Ottawa has since suggested that the original cases were “misclassified clinical diagnoses.”

— With files from The Canadian Press

by Global News