CARTHAGE, Mo. —
A food or a beverage served at a Thanksgiving dinner is the apparent source of an E. coli outbreak that killed a 51-year-old Carthage woman and sickened several other people.
“We have two confirmed cases of E. coli O157:H7 in Jasper County,” said Tony Moehr, director of the Jasper County Health Department. “One of the cases resulted in a death.”
Government regulations, Moehr said, prohibit him from identifying the victim, who died Dec. 8.
Moehr said a third confirmed case of the bacterial infection has been reported in Dade County and involves someone who attended the Thanksgiving dinner.
“It appears the cases are related to a family gathering for Thanksgiving on Nov. 27,” he said. “We have identified seven or eight additional illnesses related to that gathering, but we don’t have the test results back for them. These cases occurred around the same period of time but were not as severe.”
It is believed that 11 of the 24 people who attended the event became ill.
The department, Moehr said, did not issue a press release about the E. coli death because the incident was associated with a family gathering and did not pose a threat to the public.
Moehr said people started to become ill on Nov. 30. The department was notified on Dec. 4 of the probability of an E. coli case. The case was confirmed on Dec. 6.
“We are trying to determine exactly what the cause was,” Moehr said. “We are interviewing individuals as to what each of them ate and drank. We have taken some water samples for analysis and collected some food.
“It could have come from a variety of sources, but it was something that was consumed at that event.”
Many of the items served at the dinner were purchased directly from stores. Those items have been ruled out because other cases of the bacterial infection would have emerged elsewhere if the source had been a grocery store item.
E. coli is a bacterium that exists in the intestines of all warm-blooded animals. Consumption of undercooked meat is a common cause of acquisition of infection. Poor hand washing can contribute to the spread of the bacteria.
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