Question

. On a Monday morning in July, Angela (age 31), her children Natalie (9), Jason (6) and Marie (18 months) went to Dr. Jenkins’ office. All of them had diarrhea, abdominal cramping and gas, which had started the previous Friday. They had not noticed any bleeding, and none of them was vomiting. None of them had a fever. Dr. Jenkins noted that these symptoms were common to dozens of self-limiting infections that were easily transmitted among family members. He recommended Imodium®, increased fluid consumption, a bland diet, and consumption of yogurt as a probiotic. The baby had some diarrhea during the office visit, and Dr. Jenkins collected a sample for analysis. The next morning, the lab report indicated cysts were present in Marie’s stool sample.

Over the next three days, Dr. Jenkins’ office saw 18 patients with similar symptoms. He suspected an outbreak, and contacted the county health department. Other local physicians had reported a significant number of cases as well. After interviewing the patients, an epidemiological link was established. The town’s Centennial celebration was held about 10 days earlier. A favorite event was the strawberry festival, which featured shortcakes made with local, organically-grown berries. Upon visiting the farm, the health department determined that the berries were irrigated using untreated water from a stream running through the farm. Samples were collected and half of the specimens contained cysts. Sale of the berries was suspended, and the farm was ordered to use an appropriate water source for irrigation.

What organism was responsible for this outbreak?

Answer 1

By linking to the signs and symptoms and looking forward to the way the strawberry was irrigated the organism responsible to cause this infection is the entemoiba histolytica. Entemoiba histolytica infection is caused due to the use of contaminated food and water. Mainly in untreated water the presence of E.histolytica is common. So this kind of water was used for the irrigation of the strawberries. So when the organism entered the GI tract it not able to kill those microbes in the stomach PH as they they have survival capacity. The main symptoms of the infection are abdominal pain, abdominal cramps, blood in the stool, diarrhea. This matches with the above symptom of the patients and the the organism forms cyst too. So the infection can be caused by E.histolytica