First Recognized Community Outbreak of Haemorrhagic Colitis Due to Verotoxin-producing Escherichia Coli O 157.H7 in the UK

Overview

Journal Epidemiol Infect

Publisher Cambridge University Press

Specialties Infectious Diseases
Public Health

Date 1988 Aug 1

PMID 3042441

Citations 18

Authors

G M Morgan

C Newman

S R Palmer

J B Allen

W Shepherd

A M Rampling

R E Warren

R J GROSS

S M Scotland

H R Smith

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The first recognized outbreak of haemorrhagic colitis due to Escherichia coli O 157.H7 in the United Kingdom affected at least 24 persons living in East Anglia over a 2-week period. The illnesses were characterized by severe abdominal pain and bloody diarrhoea of short duration. Eleven patients were admitted to hospital and there was one death. Patients were mainly adult women who had not eaten out of the home in the 2 weeks before onset. Unlike previously reported outbreaks hamburgers were not the vehicle of infection, and a case-control study suggested that handling vegetables, and particularly potatoes, was the important risk factor.

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