An outbreak of shigella occurred at the Mariscos San Juan Restaurant on
4th Street in San Jose, California, the Santa Clara County Public Health
Department said. Individuals started to report symptoms including
fever, abdominal pain and diarrhea
last Saturday, health officials said.
Currently, at least 24 of those
sickened have been diagnosed with shigella, according to the health
department.
The restaurant was closed on Sunday and health department officials are
asking anyone who has eaten at the restaurant and developed symptoms,
including fever or sudden onset of diarrhea, to see a doctor
immediately. No specific source of contamination has been identified,
according to the health department.
Health department officials said many of those who had been in the
intensive care unit had been discharged, but they were warning anyone
with symptoms to stop working to curb the infection.
Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt
University Medical Center, said officials would be especially concerned
about improper food handling or if the produce was contaminated with
polluted water.
"If produce comes in from the developing world, on occasion fresh
produce has been irrigated or freshened with polluted water," he
explained.
The bacteria shigella can cause an infection called shigellosis, and
symptoms usually appear one to two days after a person has been exposed
to the bacteria, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Symptoms including diarrhea, fever and abdominal pain, and it usually
resolves itself between five to seven days, though in rare cases the
disease can be so dehydrating it can lead to dangerous complications.
Young children, the elderly and those with compromised immune systems
are at heightened risk for complications.
"This is serious business. It is a highly infectious agent," Schaffner
said. "It usually takes very little [bacteria] to make people sick. ...
That may account in part for the large number of [patients in] the
outbreak."
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