E. coli in France and Sweden: Unrelated to Germany Outbreak

E. coli Outbreak Affects Children in France
Seven children in the Nord Pas-de-Calais region of France are currently in the hospital being treated for an E. coli infection. Health officials are linking this outbreak to frozen hamburger patties made by the company Lidl as four of the children consumed these patties before becoming ill. These children range from 18 months to 8 years of age and are all being treated for hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), which is a kind of kidney failure related to E. coli.

Although it has been confirmed that this E. coli strain is not related to the same one that has killed 38 people in Germany, one in Sweden and affected over 3,000, people in France are still very concerned. It appears that the “Steak Country” boxes of meat have been expired since May 12, which maybe have led to the outbreak. French health authorities have recalled the hamburger meat in hopes to prevent more people from becoming sick.

Dog Show in Sweden Spreads EHEC
After attending a dog show in Norrköping, Sweden in the first weekend of June, two Swedes are confirmed as being infected with enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC). The dog show had about 120 participants, so health officials are expecting many more cases stemming from this event. In addition, several dogs have come down with stomach pains, which may mean that they were infected as well. The National Food Administration and the Swedish Institute for Communicable Disease Control are trying to determine the outbreak source.

New Collaboration, the Return of Influenza, and FMD in S Korea

New Collaboration Announcement
HealthMap is now collaborating with the PathoSystems Resource Integration Center (PATRIC). The goal of PATRIC is to develop bioinformatics resources for the research and countermeasures-development communities based on genomics data. This is part of the biomedical research community’s work to integrate vital information on pathogens, to provide key resources and tools to scientists, and to help researchers to analyze genomic, proteomic and other data arising from infectious disease research. PATRIC provides rich data and analysis tools for all bacterial species in the selected NIAID category A-C priority pathogens list.

As part of this new collaboration, HealthMap has created a visualization for each bacterial pathogen in PATRIC that is associated with an infectious disease. The visualizations are available through PATRIC’s Disease Overview pages to provide users with bacterial infectious disease data in proper context.  The customized HealthMap visualizations are available for PATRIC watchlist pathogens, which can be accessed via the Organism tab on the PATRIC site.

Influenza on the Increase in Europe
Over 300 people have been hospitalized with influenza in Britain, with a majority of cases being due to H1N1 Influenza A.  Northern France continues to see increasing numbers of influenza cases, and on December 22, 2010 two deaths due to H1N1 were announced. France’s Institute for Public Health also stated that influenza activity is near the epidemic threshold.

South Korea Fights Foot-and-Mouth Disease (FMD)
South Korea is working to stem the country’s worst ever outbreak of FMD. Since the 1st outbreak, reported on November 29, 2010, 56 cases have been reported and over 330,000 livestock culled. Two provinces have had confirmed cases (North Gyeongsang and Gyeonggi), and two have reports of suspected cases (Gangwon and Chungcheong).  A vaccination campaign has begun in five cities across the country in an effort to halt the spread of disease.