A mysterious respiratory illness at a Toronto nursing home claims six more lives Wednesday, raising the death toll to 16.

The cause of the outbreak at the Seven Oaks Home for the Aged remains unknown, although officials insist the illness is winding down and only confined to the nursing home

The city of Toronto is facing another health crisis just three-years after battling the deadly SARS Virus. The mystery illness has claimed ten lives so far and has left nearly ninety ill in area nursing homes.

Physcians say patients are falling ill and dying within 2-3 days after contracting the mystery virus

An unknown respiratory illness has struck an Ontario nursing home, killing six elderly patients and infecting at least 79 residents, employees and visitors.

Toronto public health officials are monitoring 170 people connected to Seven Oaks Home for the Aged in Scarborough, a bedroom community just east of Toronto, including families and children who attend a day-care center in the building

Zhengli Shi of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and colleagues find that almost 70 percent of the bat species sampled in the region showed evidence of infection with SARS-like viruses.

This would support the idea that bats are the natural host of the virus

The World Health Organization continues its warnings on the possibility of a major pandemic following the uncontrolled spread of the bird flu.

"While we still have a window of opportunity, we must do everything we can to avert an influenza pandemic, as we simultaneously prepare for a worse-case scenario," says Shigeru Omi, the WHO`s regional director for the Western Pacific