Currently, collaborations between the Health Departments of the two states have been set up to investigate the possibility of a link existing between the outbreaks in the two separate geographies. As of now, the departments have been able to successfully use DNA fingerprinting to establish a common link between 10 of the cases.
What is worrisome is the fact that even in Ohio, this outbreak is not restricted to a specific county. Cases have been reported from different counties – Lucas, Seneca, Franklin, Delaware and Fairfield counties in Ohio. Authorities have, however, been able to establish a common thread between the E. coli cases reported here so far.
Speaking about this, Dr. David Grossman, the health commissioner for Lucas County said, “There is some commonality” in the 16 cases detected in Ohio.
No details have been forthcoming from the authorities on the various aspects of the outbreak: method of infection, the impact of the outbreak and also the degree of severity of the infection in the different cases
One look at the cases and their locations and one thing stands out immediately – almost all the cases are spread out within a 30-mile radius from Columbus.
Reports of one case have come in from Delaware County, just 27 miles north of Columbus, while Fairfield county, approximately 30 miles southeast of Columbus, has four cases in all – three confirmed and one pending. Franklin county has reports a total of nine cases – four confirmed and five others pending confirmation.
With reports of an outbreak in Michigan, the health department in Ohio is collaborating with the Michigan Department of Community Health to look for a possible connection between the two. So far, there have been a total of 29 cases reported in Michigan, all possibly having some connection with contaminated ground beef.
Currently, a number of health departments are working on the case, including those from Delaware, Fairfield, and Franklin counties and also the city of Columbus.
What initially seemed like a few cases of E. coli rapidly took on the proportion of an outbreak after an official announcement to this effect earlier in the week in Ohio. The announcement came after genetic connections were established in four of the cases from Franklin County, indicating all originated from a single source.
However, the case of the 52-year-old Gahanna woman who died on May 27 stands isolated from the rest, as officials have not been able to trace any connection with any of the other cases reported so far.
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