Officials look for links in E. coli cases
All four patients with E. coli poisoning in Edmonton showed up with symptoms Sept. 11 or 12, officials with Alberta Health Services said.
“It could obviously be a coincidence,” said Dr. Gerry Predy, senior medical officer of health for Alberta Health Services. “It wouldn’t be unusual to have four cases in a month, but four cases within two days, whenever we see that, we have to assume we have to investigate it to make sure it isn’t related to a common source.”
Predy said it’s always difficult to determine a link, since the incubation period between the time someone eats contaminated food and the start of symptoms can range from three to 12 days. Asking people to remember everything they ate in the last two weeks, then finding the common denominator among patients, is a challenge.
“Most people have difficulty remembering. I know I would,” Predy said. “We try to match up stories to come to a common source, but it is very difficult to do. Even if we make that epidemiological link, then we still have to actually prove they are the same organism.”
A fifth case of E. coli poisoning has been confirmed in Calgary. Media reports suggested a four-year-old girl became sick after eating tainted beef on Labour Day. She remains in hospital receiving treatment for kidney failure. Predy wouldn’t say if any of the Edmonton patients needed hospital care. He said eight per cent of E. coli poisonings result in hemolytic-uremic syndrome, a serious disorder where the kidney can’t handle the toxins.
But Predy said no connection has been made with any of the recent Alberta cases and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s ever-widening recall of ground beef and ground-beef products manufactured at an Alberta plant and sold at major retailers in all 10 provinces and parts of the north, including Walmart, Sobeys, Safeway, Superstore and Costco. The company, Edmontonbased XL Foods, alerted the national food agency and voluntarily recalled products over concerns of a possible contamination of E. coli 0157:H7 at its processing facility in Brooks.
The recall was expanded Friday to include not only packages of ground beef, but products prepared with the meat suspected of containing E. coli, including sausages, meatloaf, meatballs and burgers.
Samples of each case have been sent to the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg for testing to determine if there is a genetic link.