Pennsylvania Animal Diagnostic Laboratory System
Globe PADLS right arrow Conferences right arrow Spring 2001 right arrow 12. E. Coli Outbreak  
Previous | Next

The Use of Pulse Field Gel Electrophoresis to Characterize a Montgomery County E. coli O:157 Outbreak in Children

Stanley M. Reynolds and Larry Iampietro

Pennsylvania Department of Health, Bureau of Laboratory, Division of Clinical Microbiology

In the Fall of 2000, the Montgomery County Health Department reports of five children with E. coli O:157 infections. Interviews by the Montgomery County Health Department the PA Department of Health Division of Epidemiolgy revealed that all of the infected children had recently visited a local "petting farm". The CDC coordinated on-site sampling and specimen collections at the farm. Preliminary plating and screening for E. coli O:157 was performed at the PA State Public Health Laboratory (PPHL). Pulse field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) was performed on the E. coli O:157 isolates at the Virginia State Public Health Laboratory and the PPHL. All of the index cases and the vast majority of the animal and environmental isolates were the same PFGE type. This strongly implicates the farm as the original source of the infections.

[ Previous | Next | PADLS Home | Conferences | Spring 2001 | Email ]

Last updated: 24-Jan-2002 13:29:33
Last validated (XHTML 1.1): 19-Dec-2002 13:43:23