Because the illness is self-limiting, victims tend to get better within five to 10 days without specific treatment, although they must be carefully monitored for complications. Most people infected with ECO157 get sick three or four days after ingesting a contaminated substance. In the Odwalla outbreak, 14 of the 66 victims developed the syndrome, including the child who died.įor reasons that are not clear, antibiotics can stimulate production of this toxin. The infection strikes children under 5 and the elderly with particular ferocity and is the leading cause of hemolytic uremic syndrome. CDC officials say the infection is often mistaken for colitis because the symptoms are similar: severe abdominal pain and grossly bloody diarrhea caused by damage to the lining of the intestine. Too often, public health officials say, ECO157 infection is undiagnosed or misdiagnosed. "It's the toxin that is absorbed into the system and starts multiplying and causes hemolytic uremic syndrome," a complication that results in kidney failure and sometimes death. "What's different about this strain is that it produces a toxin, which is what makes it a big player," said medical epidemiologist Kate Glynn of the CDC, which tracks outbreaks of food-borne illness. Testing is particularly important because antibiotics, which are standard treatment for other food-borne bacterial infections, do not help patients with ECO157 and can actually endanger them. A virulent strain of the harmless bacteria that normally line the guts of people, ECO157 is believed to be responsible for at least 20,000 cases of severe food-borne illness in the United States annually.įederal health officials say that the illness is vastly underreported because many doctors don't suspect it, and most medical laboratories don't test for the bacterium, which is detected through a stool culture. coli has emerged as the most worrisome food-related threat to public health, according to officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta. Since it was officially identified by scientists in 1982, this strain of E.
In both outbreaks the culprit was the same: a rod-shaped bacterium known as Escherichia coli 0157:H7, or ECO157 - the same microbe that sickened as many as 9,000 people and killed 10 last summer in Japan. Its chief executive officer has offered to pay the medical bills of those affected. of Half Moon Bay, Calif., the nation's largest fresh juice producer, issued a nationwide recall and indefinitely suspended production of apple juice. A 16-month-old Colorado girl died after drinking the juice, which was sold by 4,600 stores in seven states and western Canada. 30 by public health officials in Seattle, has been linked to 66 cases in California, Washington and Colorado as well as British Columbia. Most recently the problem has been traced to fresh, unpasteurized apple juice. More than 730 people in four Western states became violently ill during the 1993 outbreak and four children died. In the first instance the source was undercooked fast-food hamburgers served at Jack-in-the-Box restaurants. The similarities are striking: two mass outbreaks of a potentially lethal intestinal illness first detected by public health officials in Washington state that had been transmitted in a food beloved by children.
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