1. Petting zoos as sources of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) infections
- Author
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Oksana Ableitner, Ariane Pietzka, Sabine Schlager, Franz Allerberger, Anna Stöger, Sabine Neubauer, Heimo Lassnig, Werner Ruppitsch, Claudia Mikula, Sarah Lepuschitz, and Burkhard Springer
- Subjects
Adult ,DNA, Bacterial ,Male ,0301 basic medicine ,Microbiology (medical) ,medicine.medical_specialty ,040301 veterinary sciences ,animal diseases ,030106 microbiology ,Biology ,Escherichia coli O157 ,Shiga Toxins ,Microbiology ,Disease Outbreaks ,0403 veterinary science ,Feces ,03 medical and health sciences ,fluids and secretions ,Risk Factors ,Zoonoses ,medicine ,Animals ,Humans ,Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli ,Escherichia coli Infections ,Shiga-Toxigenic Escherichia coli ,Public health ,Incidence (epidemiology) ,Infant ,Outbreak ,Sequence Analysis, DNA ,04 agricultural and veterinary sciences ,General Medicine ,Middle Aged ,Virology ,Infectious Diseases ,Infection sources ,Shiga toxin producing ,Austria ,Child, Preschool ,Hemolytic-Uremic Syndrome ,Animals, Zoo ,Female ,Typing methods ,Contact Tracing - Abstract
Despite their general low incidence, Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia (E.) coli (STEC) infections are considered an important public health issue due to the severity of illness that can develop, particularly in young children. We report on two Austrian petting zoos, one in Tyrol (2015) and one in Vorarlberg (2016), which were identified as highly likely infection sources of STEC infections. The petting zoo related cases involved a case of hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) due to STEC O157:HNM in 2015 and an outbreak of STEC O157:H7 infections affecting five young children and two adults in 2016. The HUS case accounted for 2.8% of the 36 STEC O157:HNM/H7 infections notified in Austria in 2015 (5,9% of 17 HUS cases). The seven cases described for 2016 accounted for 4.0% of the 177 human STEC infections documented for Austria in 2016, and for 19.4% of the 36 STEC O157:HNM/H7 infections notified that year. The evaluation of the STEC infections described here clearly underlines the potential of sequence-based typing methods to offer suitable resolutions for public health applications. Furthermore, we give a state-of-the-art mini-review on the risks of petting zoos concerning exposure to the zoonotic hazard STEC and on proper measures of risk-prevention.
- Published
- 2018
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