Campylobacter Blog - Surveillance & analysis on Campylobacter news & outbreaks

Jun 27, 2005

TOLEDO (AP) -- The Children's Zoo in Toledo was closed for the weekend after three animals tested positive for an infectious bacteria that causes gastrointestinal illness. No patrons have reported being ill, but officials said Friday that the petting portion of the children's zoo could remain closed for the rest of the summer.

"This is not a major public health hazard, we're just being extremely, extremely cautious," said Andrew Odum, chairman of the zoo's biological programs committee. The zoo is part of the much larger Toledo Zoo.

Breaking News on Supplements & Nutrition in the USA

6/15/2005- New technology could soon make it cheap and easy to identify food pathogens by tagging them with color-coded probes made out of synthetic tree-shaped DNA.

These tiny "nanobarcodes" fluoresce under ultraviolet light in a combination of colors that can then be read by a computer scanner or observed with a fluorescent light microscope.

The Cornell University research group behind the project likens the technology to a supermarket checkout computer, capable of identifying thousands of different items by scanning barcodes.

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Campylobacter jejuni (Pronounced "camp-e-low-back-ter j-june-eye") was not recognized as a cause of human foodborne illness prior to 1975. Now, the bacterial organism is known to be the most common cause of bacterial foodborne illness in the U.S.1 (Salmonella is the second most common cause).

Most cases Campylobacter infection occur as isolated, sporadic events, not as a part of the large outbreaks. Even though surveillance is very limited, over 10,000 cases are reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) each year. Active surveillance for cases indicates that over 17 cases for each 100,000 persons in the population (or about 46,000 cases) are diagnosed yearly.1 Undoubtedly, many more cases go undiagnosed and unreported, and estimates are that Campylobacter causes 2-4 million cases per year in the United States.4

Drinking water found to be likely Camp Yamhill disease source
From foodconsumer
B.iological A.gents
By Philip Berger - Oregon Department of Health Services/Public Health
June 3, 2005
DHS news release

State and local public health officials have identified water contamination as the likely source of last week's disease outbreak at Camp Yamhill in Yamhill County, which sickened more than 50 people.

Mel Kohn, M.D., state epidemiologist in the Oregon Department of Human Services (DHS), said the camp's water treatment system, which draws water from the North Yamhill River, may have been overwhelmed by surface water run-off caused by recent heavy rainfall.

Kohn said it appears that more than one bacterial contaminant was in the water.

"The laboratory has confirmed cases of both E.coli O157 and Campylobacter, both of which cause diarrhea," Kohn said. "Those who were infected suffered varying degrees of illness, but we are glad to say that most have recovered."