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Re: Serious question about E. coli
It's pretty bad. See the following:
Raymond Wong wrote:
> Hello everybody,
>
> I was just watching the 6 o'clock news and somewhere in ontario there's an
> E. coli outbreak in the water system?! (there was human death involved)
> and water must be boiled before drinking etc... I don't live in ontario but
> if this happens in my area should I even be doing water changes with this
> water to my tanks...? I know this may sound silly to some people but I'm
> seriously concerned..
> the reason for the outbreak was asumed that 2 weeks ago there was a storm?
> or something like that and the water from farms flowed into the drainage
> system
>
> for those of you on both the plant and apisto list I've sent this message to
> both.. sorry if you have to read this 2x..
>
> thanks
> Raymond Wong
Wednesday, May. 24, 2000
Stomach-Bug-Outbreak causes third
death
WALKERTON, Ont. (CP) -- A third person is dead in this
small
southwestern Ontario town following what a health
official has
called the worst outbreak of the E. coli bacteria in
Canada.
Dr. Murray Girotti, an official with the hospital in
London where
many of the ill patients have been rushed, confirmed the
third
death Wednesday afternoon.
At least eight others were in critical condition and
hundreds
more were ill.
Earlier on Wednesday, a baby was pronounced dead, along
with an elderly woman.
Six children from the Walkerton area were at the
Children's
Hospital of Western Ontario in London, said Doug Matsell,
the
hospital's pediatric kidney specialist. Four were in
critical
condition in intensive care and the other two were
stable.
The outbreak has left so many ill that schools and
day-care
centres remained closed today.
Over the past few days, 160 people have gone to hospital
seeking treatment. Another 500 have phoned hospitals
complaining of diarrhea, cramps, nausea and fever.
The E. coli bacteria produces toxins that cause such
symptoms. In severe cases, the infection leads to kidney
failure
and occasionally death.
Most of those affected are from Walkerton, a town of
5,000
people about 40 kilometres southwest of Owen Sound. Other
victims recently visited the town, now part of the
municipality of
Brockton.
The Walkerton hospital has called in extra staff today to
handle
the massive number of inquiries and patients coming in
for
treatment.
McQuigge said public health officials were alerted to the
outbreak last Friday by a pediatrician in Owen Sound who
had
two cases of bloody diarrhea referred to him from the
South
Bruce-Grey Health Centre in Walkerton.
By Sunday, McQuigge said his office received the first
positive
culture for E. coli 0157 taken from a patient with bloody
diarrhea.
The chief medical officer of health for Ontario was
notified, as
were school boards in the area and Brockton Mayor David
Thomson.
Thomson said the municipality was doing all it could to
locate
the problem.
An epidemiologist from the federal Department of Health
has
been called in to profile the history and pattern of the
illness.
Public health officials believe exposure to the dreaded
bacteria
likely began between May 12 and 15. The incubation period
is
two to eight days while most people are affected two to
four
days after exposure.
Health officials are still trying to determine the cause
of the
bacteria outbreak in the farming community. Humans could
have picked it up from animals or they could have caught
it
from other people through hand-to-mouth contact.
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