On Nov. 14, the County of San Luis Obispo (CA) Department of Public Health reported a new E. coli O157 infection in a person who never visited Brookshire Farms. The farm is the suspected source of the pathogen which has sickened 15 and killed one.
The county believes the infection was passed person-to-person at a preschool in San Luis Obispo, from one of the five people confirmed ill after visiting the farm in October. The new patient developed hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), was hospitalized, and is now recovering at home.
The county has not given the patient’s age, the name of the preschool, the date the illness began, or whether the isolate has been sequenced against the five farm cases.
The county closed its outbreak investigation with five laboratory-confirmed cases and 10 suspect cases, and in which it confirmed a death on Nov. 10.
The county has released almost nothing about the people who were sickened. The San Luis Obispo Tribune has filled in some of it.
- The person who died was an 18-month-old girl. Her grandmother told The Tribune that the child visited Brookshire Farms with her family in mid-October, became ill a few days later, developed HUS, spent 10 days at Stanford’s Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, and died on Nov. 4. That was two days before the county closed its investigation and six days before it confirmed a death.
- A 6-year-old boy from Nipomo was still hospitalized more than three weeks after he got sick. The Tribune reported that he visited the farm on Oct. 17, had symptoms by Oct. 20, was admitted to a Santa Maria hospital the next day, and was transferred to Stanford on Oct. 27 with kidney failure and other complications.
Environmental testing did not find the O157 strain that made people sick, but the county listed corn cups, pumpkins, hay and non-potable water among the exposures the patients had in common.
The county reported three people with HUS among the five confirmed cases on Oct. 30.
The county calls the new case secondary, person-to-person transmission from one of the five primary cases, and says the transmission is thought to have occurred at the preschool.
The person developed HUS, was hospitalized, and is recovering at home.
Families were notified, cleaning was started, and the affected classrooms will be closed Monday, Nov. 16.
Doctors heard first. The county’s provider notice carrying the same facts is dated Nov. 13.
