The Dupage County Health Department confirmed that at least 140 people have been culture confirmed with Shigella sonnei infections contracted at a Chicago-area Subway restaurant in March of 2010. Ten were hospitalized. Health authorities closed the restaurant at 1009 E. Roosevelt in Lombard and launched an investigation into the source of the outbreak.
Shigella is
Florida sees spike in Shigella too.
James Mulder of the Syracuse Post-Standard reported to today that the Onondaga County Shigella outbreak has increased to 21 confirmed cases and 13 probable cases. This is up nine from last week.
Dr. Cynthia Morrow, the county’s health commissioner, said her department has not yet pinpointed the source of
Seventy-four people (Marler Clark clients) have filed lawsuits claiming they got Shigella infection, also known as dysentery, from a suburban Subway sandwich outlet.
In one of 41 complaints filed this week in DuPage County Court, Tania Lesus sued Neel Subway dba Subway Restaurant, its owner Dahyabhai Patel, and Subway’s parent company, Doctor’s Associates.
Patel’s
Shigella is a bacterium that can cause sudden and severe diarrhea (gastroenteritis) in humans. Shigellosis is the name of the disease that Shigella causes. The illness is also known as “bacillary dysentery.” Shigella bacteria can infect the intestinal tract after the ingestion of relatively few organisms. This is why shigellosis is the most communicable of the bacterial-induced diarrheas.
The source of Shigella bacteria is the excrement (feces) of an infected individual that is ultimately ingested by another person. The infectious material is spread to new cases by person-to-person contact or via contaminated food or water. Approximately 20% of the nearly 450,000 cases of shigellosis that occur annually in the U.S are foodborne-related. Generally, the food preparer is the individual who contaminates the food, but food may also become contaminated during processing. Contamination of drinking water by Shigella is a problem that more often occurs in the developing world, but swimming pools and beaches in the U.S. can become contaminated by infected individuals. No group of individuals is immune to shigellosis, but certain individuals are at increased risk, particularly small children. Persons infected with HIV experience shigellosis much more commonly than other individuals.
