Birch Cove Beach will be open for swimmers again Saturday morning, days after several people became sick with a mystery illness.
Public Health officials in Halifax now say about 40 people came down with a gastrointestinal illness after taking a dip in the waters of Lake Banook.
The municipality shut the beach down Wednesday to conduct water quality tests, which showed safe levels of bacteria.
E. coli was also ruled out.
On Friday, the reason for the illness was discovered.
"It would seem to have been some sort of exposure to basically this virus, from fecal material," says Dr. Richard Gould, Acting Medical Officer of Health with the Capital District Health Authority.
He’s not certain what the source of the fecal matter is, but he says the problem is gone now.
Halifax Regional Municipality quickly assured there was not overflow from a nearby wastewater pumping station and that the illness affecting Birch Cove swimmers -many of them children and lifeguards – was an isolated incident.
There was speculation that blue-green algae could be in the water, which is common this time of year, or that there was some sort of contamination in bathrooms at the beach.
"This type of viral gastroenteritis, you had to swallow the virus and get it into you," Gould says.
He says people who were just sunbathing or paddling in the water, probably wouldn’t have gotten ill.
"There’s nothing that we would see as an ongoing public health threat there," he says.
The beach will re-open to swimmers at 11:00 a.m.
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