E. Coli Traced To Water Ride
A water amusement park ride was the source of a deadly bacterial illness that sickened at least three children in Georgia, doctors determined Wednesday. A separate outbreak of E. coli occurred in Chicago, possibly caused by bad potato salad.
Health officials said that the E. coli bacterium had contaminated a water ride at the White Water Amusement Park. The ride was closed on Saturday after experts determined that the chlorine levels of the water were too low. The Captain Kid's Cove pool was reopened on Sunday.
WGNX Reporter Tiffani Diaz reports that health officials believe the bacteria was carried by a sick child that played in the pool, and that other children who became ill may have swallowed some of the pool water. But officials were careful to point out that the spread of the illness was not due to negligence by the park, but illustrated the need for parents to be more careful about their children's health.
"If you know that your child has a tummy ache and isn't feeling well...that's not the time to take your child to a public pool," said Public Health Director Dr. Kathleen Toomey.
In Chicago, authorities said contaminated potato salad may have been the culprit in a bacterial illness that sickened 4,500 people.
Test results due this week are expected to pinpoint the cause of what authorities call the largest known U.S. outbreak of an unusual variety of the E. coli bacterium.
"We're still seeing people who are presenting symptoms - cramps, nausea, and diarrhea," said Sean McDermott, a Cook County public health spokesman.
The outbreak over the June 6 weekend was traced to Iwan's Deli and Catering in southwest suburban Orland Park. An estimated 4,000 to 4,500 people became ill.
Some had eaten food purchased over the counter, and others were guests at more than 300 of 530 parties catered by Iwan's that weekend.
The culprit was identified by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from samples taken from three victims as the bacterium enterotoxigenic escherichia coli, also known as ETEC or "traveler's diarrhea."
Dr. Paul Mead of the CDC said the outbreak was the largest documented in the United States of the relatively rare bacterium.
Mead said the next-largest outbreak was in 1980 in an unspecified Wisconsin city and made some 450 victims ill.
He declined to comment on whether it could be the largest U.S. outbreak of E. coli in any of its many forms.
Mead said the Orland Park variety of the bacterium was nothing like E. coli 0157:H7, which sickened 700 patrons of Jack in the Box restaurants in Washington state in 1993. Four people died in that outbreak.
"They cause completely different diseases," Mead said. He said he didn't want to make such a comparison because it might "confuse people and make them think that their children are going to suffer kidney failure as a result of this disease."
While ETE is common in developing countries, it is not often seen in the United States, experts said. They said there have been just 14 U.S. outbreaks in the last 23 years.
Most people recover from the illness without antibiotics or specific treatment, the Cook County Public Health Service said.