The latest HSA report compares 2024's data to 2023, on confirmed cases of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) infection. A 26% rise has been reproted; in actual numbers, 2544 cases, up from 2018. One outbreak was to blame for the jolt to the longer term average. It does demonstrate that, with relatively small numbers, 26% may not equal a massiv enumber of actual cases. That's statistics for you!
One form of the bacteria, the notorious E.coli O157 is in the forefront of our minds at the moment, as we're currently involved in investigating a local case involving a young person, who's currently in hospital with kidney failure. It's clearly a serious aillness, fatality rates are around 10% of cases, and it is very infectious.
As a reminder, there are numerous routes of infection between source (ruminant animals, particularly cattle but also sheep and goats) and receiver (us). Aside from the "usual suspect" of food poisoning (e.g. under-cooked minced beef), there are occuaptional routes of exposure we may need to consider;
- direct contact with animals themselves, or their faeces; from farmers to pest controllers
- contact with a contaminated environment, i.e. anywhere which may be contaminated with animal faeces. there was an interesting local case a few years a go at a petting zoo, where the E. coli cases were contracted from contaminated rabbit faeces on the grassed picnic area.
- person-to-person, through the delighfully named "faecal-oral" route.
The principal control for anyone working in any environment where there may be faecal contamination from animals, is good personal hygiene. Not just hand sanitisation before eating your sandwiches, but when taking off your muddy boots, "peronal habits" such as abesnt-mindedly chewing the end of your pen, chewing finger nails, etc. The simple stuff goes a long way here.