March 2005

Shigella is a genus of bacteria that can cause sudden and severe diarrhea (gastroenteritis) in humans. Shigella thrives in the human intestine and is commonly spread both through food and by person-to-person contact. A Japanese scientist Kiyoshi Shiga discovered these bacteria over 100 years ago. Shigellosis is the name of the disease that Shigella causes.…

Mar 27, 2005
Fifteen people in Florida who visited agricultural fairs recently have developed a life-threatening kidney disease or are infected with bacteria that can cause it, Florida health officials said yesterday.
Eleven of those affected are children, and petting zoos at the two fairs are suspected, but Florida’s secretary of health said it was “too early to point to one single element, such as a petting zoo.”
Epidemiologists are “trying to triangulate the 15 cases and see if they can be associated with a single point source,” the secretary, Dr. John O. Agwunobi, said.
Officials at various Florida hospitals told The Associated Press that they knew of nine children with hemolytic uremic syndrome who had visited petting zoos at the Central Florida Fair in Orlando or the Florida Strawberry Festival in Plant City. One Florida television reporter described the death of a child who had visited a petting zoo, but it was unclear if there was any connection.Continue Reading Florida Officials Seek a Link in 15 Cases of a Kidney Illness

Mar 25, 2005
By JAN HOLLINGSWORTH
jhollingsworth@tampatrib.com
PLANT CITY – State agriculture officials have dispatched a team of veterinarians and inspectors to test farm animals that may be linked to life- threatening cases of kidney failure among children and at least one adult who attended recent fairs in Orange and Hillsborough counties.
First stop was Ag-Venture, a Plant City-based farm show that operated petting zoos this month at the Florida Strawberry Festival and the Central Florida Fair.
All the patients with the potentially deadly syndrome had contact with livestock at the fairs.Continue Reading Officials Search For Source Of Ailment

March 23, 2005
The Lubbock Health Department says 35 cases of shigellosis have popped up since January.
The shigella bacteria is spread hand to mouth after someone forgets to wash their hands after using the bathroom.
The Texas Department of Health is also warning everyone to take precautions to keep this from spreading further.
“Shigella…

Wednesday, March 23, 2005
The Texas Department of State Health Services is urging residents of the Texas Panhandle and South Plains to take precautions to control the spread of shigellosis, an infectious bacterial disease cousing diarrhea, fever and stomach cramps. A total of 33 cases of shigellosis have been reported since mid January.
” Most…

By Judith Blake
Seattle Times staff reporter
March 23, 2005
The calls run the food-safety gamut:
ï A Seattle-area woman said she’d found walnuts in a packaged, pre-cut salad mix, though nuts were not listed in the ingredients. Her young son, who was severely allergic to walnuts, did not eat any of the nuts, but the woman worried that someone else might have an allergic reaction to the mislabeled product.
ï A man discovered mold on the meat-filled breakfast burrito he’d purchased at a convenience store.
ï A woman was dismayed to find larvae in an energy snack bar.
These are among the calls consumers have made to the new toll-free Food Safety Consumer Complaint Hotline (1-800-843-7890) launched in January by the Washington State Department of Agriculture.
Goal: to reduce the risk of food-borne illness by making it easier for consumers to lodge complaints and for officials to address them.Continue Reading New hotline handles food-safety complaints

Tuesday, March 22, 2005
By Bradley Flory
Staff Writer
An outbreak of shigellosis in Jackson County may have peaked and subsided.
Twenty-nine cases of the communicable disease were confirmed between late January and mid-March, but no new cases have been confirmed in more than 10 days, said Mary Ricciardello, clinical services manger at the Jackson County Health Department.
“We’re hoping this is the end, but you never know,” Ricciardello said. “There are probably always cases of shigellosis out there that go undiagnosed.”
The disease, caused by bacteria called shigella, usually makes people ill for five to seven days.Continue Reading Shigellosis appears to be subsiding

By Alex Cukan
UPI Science Writer
RECREATIONAL SWIMMING HEALTH THREAT
There is a growing U.S. public health threat from recreational water illnesses caused by germs such as cryptosporidium, shigella, and E. coli O157:H7. “People need to keep in mind they share the water with everyone else in the pool who may spread illness, including kids…

Washington: Royal Fork Shigella Litigation

Marler Clark sued a Mount Vernon restaurant over a food-borne intestinal infection outbreak that sickened at least nine people in January. The civil suit against the Royal Fork was filed last week in Skagit County Superior Court on behalf of Sandra and Lester Hemmingson of Mount Vernon. Sandra Hemmingson was…

A rise in the number of Escherichia coli cases requires diligent detection efforts.
By Debby Giusti, MT(ASCP)
Page 1
Ten-year-old Brianne Kiner spent 40 days in a coma in 1993, while teams of medical personnel worked round-the-clock to keep her alive. Brianne has little memory of the 118 days she was on kidney dialysis or the 80 units of blood she received, nor does she recall the numerous times the doctors told her mother that Brianne wouldnít live through the night. What Brianne does remember is that her hospital ordeal left her with the dubious recognition of being the sickest child in the United States to survive Escherichia coli 0157:H7.1
Over a 3-month period, more than 700 children and adults in four states in the northwest became ill after eating at various Jack in the Box restaurants. They suffered severe stomach cramps and diarrhea, often bloody, and close to 200 of the ill had to be hospitalized. Fifty-five cases progressed into hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a condition that can lead to kidney failure and even death. Children and the elderly are most at risk for HUS, and in the 1993 outbreak, four children died.2
Epidemiologists quickly recognized that those infected had eaten undercooked hamburgers served at more than 90 Jack in the Box restaurants in the four state area.2 The beef shipped to the restaurants was found to be contaminated with E. coli 0157, and to date, the outbreak remains the largest in U.S. history caused by the organism.Continue Reading E. coli’s Insidious Spread