E. coli test samples could yield clues to outbreak's cause

By John David Sutter

Published: September 6, 2008

State health officials expect to have new clues about the source of a widespread E. coli next week.

State Epidemiologist Kristy Bradley said Friday that workers have stopped swabbing bacterial samples from the restaurant in Locust Grove where the outbreak is believed to have started.

Test results on those samples should be completed next week, she said, and will give health officials a much clearer idea of which foods or kitchen equipment may have started the contamination.

The outbreak of a rare strain of toxin-producing E. coli O111 has made 206 people sick and killed one man. Most of those who became ill ate at the Country Cottage restaurant in Locust Grove, a town about 50 miles east of Tulsa.

The state has not updated the number of people ill in connection with the outbreak in several days.

Bradley said that's partly because the outbreak is contained and illness rates are dropping, but also because the state is focused on preparing a report about the cause of the outbreak for next week.

"We now are only seeing just a trickle of new cases being identified, which is a great relief and makes us confident that we have stopped the spread of the outbreak,” she said.

The number of people hospitalized with bloody diarrhea, stomach cramps and vomiting in connection with the outbreak dropped to about 20 Friday, she said. That's down from a previous high of 50.

Many of the victims ate at Country Cottage on the weekend of Aug. 15, she said.

Those who are still hospitalized may suffer permanent organ damage and could develop diabetes, Bradley said.

Some of the hospitalized victims are on dialysis for kidney failure. Others are being given plasma treatments and blood transfusions because their red blood cells or organs are being attacked by toxins the E. coli bacteria create, she said.

She said it's unclear how many people are on those treatments.

"We've had such a large number of hospital patients that we haven't had the resources internally in order to assess that on a day-to-day basis,” Bradley said.

The state currently has 35 people working on the case, she said. Three workers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta are expected to arrive today to help with the investigation. Volunteers from the University of Oklahoma and retired state health workers are helping also, Bradley said.

She said the case investigation is of scientific importance.

"We are provided a unique opportunity to really contribute to the overall scientific and medical knowledge about this organism, E. coli O111, because it is unusual to have human outbreaks identified in the United States with this bacteria, and the scope of the outbreak,” she said.