More than 70 people were hospitalized after attending the Pike County Color Drive.
State health officials from Illinois have been alerted after 70 people were hospitalized. All of them attended the Pike County Color Drive. They declared that there could be an outbreak of E-Coli in Illinois, due to an infected batch of apple cider.
Although all evidence points toward the apple cider consumed during the celebration, authorities still didn’t figure out that caused the mysterious disease. It seems that the whole thing seems to revolve around two location where apple cider was being sold.
Since Friday, the number of infected patients has risen to whopping 70 and it could very well be that more are on the way. Admitted patients have ages between less than one year old and 89 years. All of them came after accusing symptoms like diarrhea, projectile vomit and severe abdominal cramps.
Doug Wilson, a member of the Health Department, announced that there could be only two culprits involved in this outbreak. The first one is E-coli and the second one might be a microscopic parasite named cryptosporidium.
As more and more patients are admitted each day in the hospitals, Health authorities have doubled their efforts in order to identify the real culprit. It would seem that the most affected patients are those under one year and the elderly who have a weak immune system.
Escherichia Coli, commonly known as E-Coli is a gram-negative and anaerobic bacteria that usually resided in our lower intestines. Most of the E-coli strains are harmless. But any now and then, a mutation of the E-Coli strain can induce food poisoning. This generally occurs when the food source is contaminated. Specialists stated that harmless strains of E-Coli are actually quite beneficial to our organism. These micro life forms are capable of producing vitamin K2 which in vital in the process of blood coagulation.
The most common E-coli infection is with E-coli serotype O157:H7. The bacteria has an incubation period of three to four days, although there have been cases of patients that reported the first symptoms after a week. What are the symptoms associated with E-Coli infection? Diarrhea is usually the first sign that you may have an E-Coli infection. It can be mild, but, in rare and severe cases, it may become watery and blood may be present in the stools.
Another sign of E-coli infection is abdominal cramping followed by nausea and ultimately vomiting. There are no drugs or medication capable of treating an E-Coli infection. The best cures are extended bed rest and plenty of fluids.
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