GlobalNews.ca | Thursday, June 11, 2026 
FIFA World Cup begins today. Here’s how Toronto healthcare workers prepared

As people from around the world arrive in Toronto and festivities marking the beginning of the FIFA World Cup get underway, health-care workers want to assure visitors and residents that there are key measures in place to help keep them safe. They have spent months preparing for possible threats — from mass-casualty events to outbreaks of viral illnesses such as measles andnorovirus. Here’s what to know. – Infectious disease control – Toronto Public Health workers are used to working behind the scenes at major sports events and festivals in the city, but the main difference with the World Cup is the length — more than five weeks — and the many countries people are coming from, said Dr. Michelle Murti, the city’s medical officer of health. “We really are inviting the world. There was a lot of replanning and planning depending on which countries we would be hosting,” she said. Public health officials have been doing global surveillance to know which infectious diseases are common in travellers’ countries of origin, such as measles or meningitis. The federal government has imposed temporary travel restrictions on visitors from Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and South Sudan amid an Ebola outbreak. Local public health authorities weren’t involved in that decision and won’t comment on it, Murti said, but noted that the risk of Ebola is low and something like a norovirus outbreak is much more likely…Read more