E. coli outbreak keeps rising
The latest statistics from the CDC says 157 people have now been diagnosed in 23 states. I wonder about the lag time between someone getting diagnosed, tested, and it becoming a statistic with the CDC. A friend of mine has a daughter in Texas, diagnosed, tested, and treated a week ago and the CDC still doesn’t have any cases in Texas. I wonder if reporting to the CDC is voluntary for states?
Here’s the link to the news from the CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/foodborne/ecolispinach/current.htm
As of 1 PM (ET) September 21, 2006, Thursday, 157 persons infected with the outbreak strain of E. coli O157:H7 have been reported to CDC from 23 states.
Among the ill persons, 83 (52%) were hospitalized, 27 (17%) developed a type of kidney failure called hemolytic-uremic syndrome (HUS), and an adult in Wisconsin died. One hundred thirteen (71%) were female and 11 (7%) were children under 5 years old. Among ill persons who provided the date when their illnesses began, 92% became ill between August 19 and September 5. The case with the earliest illness onset known to be associated with consumption of fresh spinach began having symptoms on August 19.
Idaho is currently investigating a suspect case in a 2-year-old child with HUS who died on September 20 and reportedly had recently consumed spinach. E. coli O157 has not been detected in the child.
The states that have reported cases are Arizona (4 cases), California (1), Colorado (1), Connecticut (3), Idaho (4), Illinois (1), Indiana (8), Kentucky (7), Maine (2), Michigan (4), Minnesota (2), Nebraska (8), New Mexico (5), Nevada (1), New York (11), Ohio (20), Oregon (5), Pennsylvania (7), Utah (17), Virginia (1), Washington (3), Wisconsin (41), and Wyoming (1).
