BACKGROUND For a regional project in four low-incidence states, we designed a customizable tuberculosis outbreak response plan. Prior to dissemination of the plan, a tuberculosis outbreak occurred, presenting an opportunity to perform a field assessment of the plan. The purpose of the assessment was to ensure that the plan included essential elements to help public health professionals recogniz...

Cholera was absent from the island of Hispaniola at least a century before an outbreak that began in Haiti in the fall of 2010. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) analysis of clinical isolates from the Haiti outbreak and recent global travelers returning to the United States showed indistinguishable PFGE fingerprints. To better explore the genetic ancestry of the Haiti outbreak strain, we ...

During 1994-1996, Shigella sonnei outbreaks occurred in 8 North American traditionally observant Jewish communities. These communities remain relatively separate from neighboring populations while maintaining close contact by travel with coreligionists in other cities. Epidemiologic investigations suggested community-to-community transmission via travel. Outbreak-related and control isolates of...

We investigated an outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) at King Fahad Medical City (KFMC), Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, during March 29-May 21, 2014. This outbreak involved 45 patients: 8 infected outside KFMC, 13 long-term patients at KFMC, 23 health care workers, and 1 who had an indeterminate source of infection. Sequences of full-length MERS coronavirus (MERS-CoV) from 10 patients a...

Increased incidence of food-borne illnesses is a matter of significant concern for the community and the government alike. An outbreak of E. coli O111 that occurred in Australia in 1995 affected 200 people of whom 22 developed HUS while one person died. This study analyses the economic costs of the outbreak. The total cost of the outbreak is estimated to be A$5. 61 million. Productivity loss re...

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE An outbreak of Serratia marcescens infections outbreak is described, as well as the epidemiological study that linked the outbreak to the use of 2% aqueous chlorhexidine antiseptic. METHOD In late November 2014 an increasing incidence of S. marcescens isolates was detected in patients treated in the emergency department. It was considered a possible outbreak, and an...

A food poisoning outbreak affected 114 female Malay students staying in a religious secondary school hostel in Klang. The students developed an illness mainly characterized by abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting and giddiness. The median incubation period in this outbreak was 2.5 hours. Laboratory examination of suspected food revealed 2.3 X106 Bacillus cereus organisms per gram of fried noodles. ...

Substandard Vaccination Compliance and the 2015Measles Outbreak The ongoing measles outbreak linked to the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California, shines a glaring spotlight on our nation’s growing antivaccination movement and the prevalenceofvaccination-hesitantparents.Although the indexcase has not yet been identified, the outbreak likely started sometime between December 17 and 20, 2014.1,...

The outbreak of foot and mouth disease (FMD) that occurred in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2001 was the single largest epidemic of FMD the world had ever experienced. This outbreak raises important issues about future FMD control strategies, including the use of vaccination. The outbreak has also stimulated a wider debate in the UK on the role and direction of agriculture. The author presents the...

A case of open tuberculous infection in a member of staff at a primary school resulted in an outbreak in which nearly a quarter of the children in the school contracted a primary infection. The growth status of these children was compared with that in the non-infected children before the outbreak and on two occasions after the outbreak. The children with tuberculous infection were taller and fa...