Foodborne transmission of sorbitol-fermenting Escherichia coli O157:[H7] via ground beef: an outbreak in northern France, 2011

Abstract

Sorbitol-fermenting Escherichia coli O157:[H7] is a particularly virulent clone of E. coli O157:H7 associated with a higher incidence of haemolytic uraemic syndrome and a higher case fatality rate. Many fundamental aspects of its epidemiology remain to be elucidated, including its reservoir and transmission routes and vehicles. We describe an outbreak of sorbitol-fermenting E. coli O157:[H7] that occurred in France in 2011. Eighteen cases of paediatric haemolytic uraemic syndrome with symptom onset between 6 June and 15 July 2011 were identified among children aged 6 months to 10 years residing in northern France. A strain of sorbitol-fermenting E. coli O157:[H7] stx2a eae was isolated from ten cases. Epidemiological, microbiological and trace-back investigations identified multiply-contaminated frozen ground beef products bought in a supermarket chain as the outbreak vehicle. Strains with three distinct pulsotypes that were isolated from patients, ground beef preparations recovered from patients' freezers and from stored production samples taken at the production plant were indistinguishable upon molecular comparison. This investigation documents microbiologically confirmed foodborne transmission of sorbitol-fermenting of E. coli O157 via beef and could additionally provide evidence of a reservoir in cattle for this pathogen.

Cinnamon Oil Inhibits Shiga Toxin Type 2 Phage Induction and Shiga Toxin Type 2 Production in Escherichia coli O157:H7

“…More than 63,000 cases of foodborne illness are estimated to be caused by E. coli O157:H7 annually in the United States (2). Outbreaks have been associated with ground beef, ready-to-eat salad, cheese, apple juice, and other foods (3)(4)(5)(6).…”

Ongoing haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS) outbreak caused by sorbitol-fermenting (SF) Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) O157, Germany, December 2016 to May 2017

“…SF STEC O157:H - was first described in Germany in 1988 [2] and subsequently caused several outbreaks in Germany [3-5] and elsewhere in Europe [6,7]. SF STEC O157 is characterised by a high pathogenicity [8,9].…”

“…In other outbreaks, SF STEC O157:H - infections were epidemiologically linked to the consumption of mortadella (Italian-style sausage) and smoked pork paté [5] or to visiting one particular playground [3]. SF STEC O157 was isolated from minced beef products in an outbreak involving 18 HUS cases in France in 2011 [6]. In an outbreak associated with a recreational farm visit in Finland in 2012, unpasteurised milk was the most likely vehicle and isolates from patients’ stool samples, cattle and the farm environment were identical [7].…”

Risk of Escherichia coli O157:H7 infection linked to the consumption of beef

“…The majority of the human E. coli O157:H7 cases were due to food and water contaminated with cattle faecal matter (Gyles, 2007). Recent E. coli O157:H7 outbreaks were linked to undercooked ground beef (King et al, 2014;Torso et al, 2015), beef products (CDC, 2016), ground bison (Cronquist, 2014), pork (Cheng, 2015;Honish, 2017), raw milk (Logsdon et al, 2015), bagged salad (Marder et al, 2014), romaine lettuce (Slayton et al, 2013), spinach (Sharapov et al, 2016) and strawberies (Laidler et al, 2013).…”