Diarrhea-causing intestinal parasite infections on the rise in Quebec
Posted July 15, 2026 11:28 am.
Last Updated July 15, 2026 4:09 pm.
Quebec is seeing an increase in intestinal parasite infections causing serious diarrhea.
Dr. Mitch Shulman, an emergency medicine physician, joined CityNews to explain.
What can you tell us about the increase we are seeing in Quebec? Should we be concerned?
Concerned about, yeah. You should be aware of it. It’s nothing that you should be overly worried about. You’re going to see it every time at this time of year. Why? One, people are camping. So, if you’re camping, you don’t know about your water source. Perhaps you aren’t preparing your food properly. Perhaps you aren’t washing your hands properly.
Number two, barbecue season. So unless you’re preparing your food properly, you’re running a risk. Remember, uncooked foods should always be kept separate, and the utensils used to either cook, prepare, store, they should be kept completely separate from something once it’s cooked. You should be washing your hands in between without questioning. You should be washing your hands before you eat, washing your hands after you go to the bathroom. These are all obvious things.
But the other thing you’re going to start seeing is you’re getting produce sent in from other countries. This produce is contaminated. And if you don’t prepare the produce properly, you do run a risk of infection. We’re seeing that in Michigan right now, huge outbreak of an intestinal bug in the States. Haven’t seen any cases yet in Canada, but you never know, right? And they’re not sure where it comes from. They think it’s from lettuce, but they aren’t sure.
So what does that teach us? One, wash your hands after you prepare your food. Two, rinse off your fruit and vegetables. Straightforward. Fruits and vegetables like grapes, blueberries that don’t have any pits or crevices on them, rinsing them in water for about a minute is more than enough. You don’t have to use soap and water. If it has pits or crevices, things like raspberries, for example, you may want to soak them in a solution of vinegar and water, one part vinegar to three parts water for about a minute and rinse it off. And the added advantage, it will last longer in your fridge. So not only are you preparing your foods properly, not only are you protecting yourself against yucky bugs, but you’re also keeping your fruits and vegetables and helping them to last longer.
The most important message though is hand washing. And that’s always the most important concern… Wash your hands after you’ve prepared the raw hamburger, you clean off utensils using soap and water. Soap and water is more than enough. You wipe down the board that they were sitting on and you never put cooked food in the same place uncooked food was. And aside from that, you should be OK.
We have to be a little bit more concerned about our little kids. Little kids don’t have the reserves. So babies don’t have the reserves. So nausea, vomiting and diarrhea in a baby, that usually needs to be seen by a health-care professional. Older people, especially if they have older life and health issues, diabetes, kidney disease, heart disease, they may need to be a little bit more careful and they may need to be seen a little bit sooner. And if you have an underlying immune deficiency or on medications that modify your immune system, you’re going to have to be a little bit more careful. You may need to be seen by a physician or health-care professional a lot sooner.
