[US] Kids, Farmed Animals & E. coli

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FARM ANIMALS POSE E. COLI THREAT TO KIDS - STUDY

Aug. 21/02

Reuters

By Gene Emery

 

BOSTON - Researchers were cited as reporting in Thursday's New England Journal

of Medicine that children who have contact with farm animals run the risk of

being infected by a deadly E. coli bacteria if they do not wash their hands

before eating.

 

The story says that medical detectives reached the conclusion after studying an

outbreak of E. coli illness among preschoolers who visited a

Pennsylvania farm. Tainted food and water are seen as the usual causes of E.

coli O157:H7 infection, which each year kills about 60 Americans and sickens

more than 70,000.

 

However, there is concern that contact with animals such as cattle, which are

known to harbor the bacteria, may cause people to develop the bloody

diarrhea, fever, and vomiting that are common symptoms of the infection. The

story says that the new study began after 16 people fell ill in the autumn of

2000, most of them after visiting a petting farm that housed

cows, sheep, goats, pigs and llamas.

 

The investigators, led by John A. Crump of the Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention in Atlanta, ultimately identified 15 confirmed cases and 36

suspected cases of infection. They also discovered that 15 percent of the 216

cattle were infected with E. coli, a rate up to 30 times higher than usual. In

addition, most of the E. coli had the same genetic fingerprint as the strain

that made the children ill. Once the farm was closed to the public on Nov. 4, no

new cases were reported.

 

The Crump team found that people who became sick were more likely to have had

more contact with the animals, and that people who tended to bite their nails or

purchased food or drink from the outdoor concession stand faced a higher risk of

infection, unless they had washed their hands. Hand washing, supervised contact

with animals " and clear separation of food-related activities from areas housing

animals " would reduce the risk for visitors interested in experiencing farm

life, the researchers said.

 

In an editorial published in the journal, Sarah O'Brien and Goutam Adak of the

Public Health Laboratory Service Communicable Disease Surveillance

Center in London called the finding another milestone in the understanding of E.

coli O157:H7.

 

 

 

 

 

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