Officials urge public to take precautions against bacteria

A confirmed case of Escherichia coli reported by the Sullivan County Regional Health Department on Wednesday is the latest in a possible “outbreak” of bacterial infections that have so far sickened 11 Northeast Tennessee residents this month and killed a young girl from Southwest Virginia.

And as they search for information about these infections and how they were transferred, local health officials are reminding people to take preventative steps like properly cooking meat and thoroughly washing fruits and vegetables.

“We are recommending that everyone take precautions to avoid getting infected,” said David Kirschke, director of the Northeast Tennessee Regional Health Office, which serves Carter, Greene, Hancock, Hawkins, Johnson, Sullivan, Unicoi and Washington counties from its Johnson City headquarters.

E. coli is a rod-shaped bacterium commonly found in the large intestines of humans and other warm-blooded animals. While most types or strains of E. coli are harmless and can actually help a person’s digestive process, several other types or strains are harmful to humans and can create toxins that attack the intestinal lining.

Those infected with one of these harmful strains typically suffer from severe abdominal cramping, bloody diarrhea and a low-grade fever for a period of about eight days. But the bacterium has been known to cause more serious problems like renal failure, anemia, and death when it infects the elderly or very young children.

According to the Washington County, Tenn., Sheriff’s Office, a 2-year-old girl from Dryden, Va., was rushed to Johnson City Medical Center’s Pediatric Intensive Care Unit on Sunday after suffering with diarrhea and other symptoms common to an acute E. coli infection.

The girl died at the hospital, while her 4-year-old brother, who was suffering from similar symptoms, was rushed to another East Tennessee hospital for continued treatment. On Monday, the Virginia Health Department confirmed the presence of E. coli O157:H7 – one of the bacterium’s most common harmful strains – in the two children.

“That investigation is continuing as we speak,” Department spokesman Bobby Parker said when asked how the children were infected. “There are lots of ways it could have been transferred. I just don’t know.”

Parker’s confirmation of an E. coli O157:H7 infection came just one day before Kirshke and other health officials from the Northeast Tennessee Regional Health Office announced that preliminary test results showed 10 people living in four of the seven counties it serves have had an E. coli infection since June 1.

Kirshke said his office’s initial test results suggested E. coli O157:H7 may have infected two of the Northeast Tennessee residents who got sick. Seven of the residents appear to have been infected by a less severe strain, he said, while the test results did not provide any information about what strain infected the 10^th victim.

 No details were available Wednesday on the latest case in Sullivan County, but a release from the Health Department said Sullivan officials are working closely with Northeast Tennessee health officials to determine the cause of the infection.

The health director said these cases bother him because his local office typically runs across only seven or eight E. coli infections over the course of an entire year. The state of Tennessee sees about 90 E. coli infections each year, while the state of Virginia sees about 149 confirmed cases each year.

“We are treating this as an outbreak,” Kirkshke said, adding that his office is actively working to get more information on the types of E. coli that sickened the Northeast Tennessee residents and how they might have run across it. So far, he said, they have found no common thread between those who got sick in Northeast Tennessee or between them and the Dryden children.

Because of the high number of cases, Kirkshke and Parker both stressed that people should take a series of simple steps to avoid coming into contact with the bacterium – which most often spreads to humans through contact with another animal’s feces.

The two men said people should make sure to diligently wash any raw fruits or vegetables because the produce may have come into contact with an animal’s feces while it was in the fields. They should also make sure to cook meat – especially ground beef – to the proper temperature and scrub any surfaces that may come into contact with raw meat.

Parker also stressed that people should avoid swimming in ponds and lakes that are near places where cattle and other farm animals are kept. This is especially the case with children, who often take gulps of water when they go swimming.

Finally, Parker and Kirkshke said their offices have discovered no evidence that the outbreak they are dealing with in Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia is in any way linked to an E. coli outbreak plaguing Germany since May 2.

According to the Associated Press, this outbreak so far has killed 24 people, sent hundreds to the hospital and infected almost 2,400 people. It’s being described as the world’s deadliest E. coli outbreak and has German officials stumped as to what may have caused the infections.