March 8, 2016
By Raquel Rutledge
Calling it the largest outbreak (click here) of its kind and stressing the urgency of finding the source, the CDC has identified two more suspected cases of deadly blood infections and sent additional investigators to Wisconsin.
"This is very much a real outbreak," said Michael Bell, deputy director of the Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Investigators have not been able to find a medical product, single facility, food source or other means of exposure that could explain how dozens of people — mostly elderly residents of central and southeastern Wisconsin — have become ill from a bacterium named Elizabethkingia anophelis.
Isolated tests from the two suspected cases had not yet been confirmed, and officials would not say whether the individuals were sickened or had died. As of Tuesday, the outbreak was tied to 44 confirmed cases, including 18 deaths.
Other strains of Elizabethkingia have caused smaller outbreaks in previous years, but most were tied to a single source...
Elizabethkingia meningoseptica (click here)
There are complications from the infection.
Tubercular pleural effusion complicated with Elizabethkingia meningoseptica infection in a diabetic male (click here)
Editor, (click here)
Elizabethkingia meningoseptica is a nonfermentative, nonmotile, oxidase positive Gram-negative rods that are widely distributed in nature. In 1959, an American bacteriologist Elizabeth O. King at Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Atlanta discovered it and named it asFlavobacterium meningosepticum or CDC-IIa. Subsequently in 1994 it was renamed as Chryseobacterium menigosepticum by Van Damme et al.The organism mostly causes meningitis in premature and newborn infants and rarely causes pneumonia, endocarditis, and meningitis associated with severe underlying illness in adults. Accurate diagnosis of E. menigoseptica is important because the species is usually resistant to multiple antibiotics including extended spectrum beta-lactam agents and aminoglycosides. Here, we report a case of tubercular pleural effusion complicated with E. meningoseptica infection in a diabetic male....
There are complications from the infection.
Tubercular pleural effusion complicated with Elizabethkingia meningoseptica infection in a diabetic male (click here)
Editor, (click here)
Elizabethkingia meningoseptica is a nonfermentative, nonmotile, oxidase positive Gram-negative rods that are widely distributed in nature. In 1959, an American bacteriologist Elizabeth O. King at Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Atlanta discovered it and named it asFlavobacterium meningosepticum or CDC-IIa. Subsequently in 1994 it was renamed as Chryseobacterium menigosepticum by Van Damme et al.The organism mostly causes meningitis in premature and newborn infants and rarely causes pneumonia, endocarditis, and meningitis associated with severe underlying illness in adults. Accurate diagnosis of E. menigoseptica is important because the species is usually resistant to multiple antibiotics including extended spectrum beta-lactam agents and aminoglycosides. Here, we report a case of tubercular pleural effusion complicated with E. meningoseptica infection in a diabetic male....
