The Fourth of July is coming up soon which means
celebrations with fireworks and cookouts. While we all know to be careful with fireworks,
eating outdoors may also be a cause for concern. Shigella sp is a bacteria that
causes bacterial dysentery and is transmitted by feces, fingers, food, and even
flies. Food left uncovered outdoors can be very enticing to flies. These flies
may breed in infected feces and then contaminate the uncovered food.
Shigella spp are divided into four sup groups including S.
dysenteriae, S. flexneri, S. boydii, and S. sonnei. S. sonnei is the most
common group found in North America and causes around 14,000 cases of shigellosis each year.This bacteria is so
potent that even the ingestion of as few as 10-100 organisms can cause an
infection. Symptoms include high fever, chills, abdominal cramps, and pain and
appear 1-2 days after ingestion while dysentery results after 1-3 days when the
bacteria migrate from small intestine to the colon. Shigellosis is short lived
with infections lasting from 5-7 days and most people affected are not
hospitalized. Most patients that are hospitalized are elderly or children
younger than two. Even if an infected person is asymptomatic, they can still
spread Shigella sonnei to other persons.
S. sonnei is a gram negative, nonmotile, bacilli that
closely resembles E. coli. Although it is resistant to many antibiotics, S.
sonnei may be treated with ampicillin, trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole ,
nalidixic acid, ciprofloxacin.
Prevention of Shigella sonnei can be easily resolved by hand
washing, proper food preparation, and proper food storage. People should wash
their hands before eating or preparing food and meat should be cooked at the
proper temperature to ensure that any bacteria is killed. When outside, food
should be covered so flies cannot come into contact and contaminate it.
I read somewhere that they can also spread Salmonella and even parasite eggs. I already knew flies were unsanitary in general but it's awful to think of the things they can spread. I think a few extra steps to cover food and wash hands like you said is well worth it to avoid potential sickness from a little fly.
ReplyDeleteI knew that you always need to cover your food from flies, but I always thought it was mainly because of the parasite eggs and well, they're flies.... not exactly sanitary. However, I never thought about them being able to spread things like Shigella, or as Sarah just mentioned, Salmonella. Now on Wednesday, I'll be sure to cover our food for more reasons than just parasite eggs.... to prevent an outbreak of Shigella, as well ;) I just recovered from a stomach virus and DO NOT want another one!!!!
ReplyDeleteOne thing that I do not understand is how Shigella is transmitted by flies in the US. Since humans are the only resevoir and we get rid of our feces (by flushing), how are the flies supposed to have access to the bacteria? I think that flies would have the ability to cary this organism if they had the opportunity, but I am missing where they have the opportunity to acquire it in this part of the industrialized world. This leads me to think, unfortunately, that most Shigella is due to poor hand-washing rather than transmission by flies.
ReplyDeleteLike everyone said Ive always known to cover food from flies but I thought that was mainly from eggs and spreading their own feces. I knew they had the potential of spreading things due to them landing on infected sites but I never thought about what exactly they could be landing on that would allow the spread of these organisms. Like Caleb said there isnt really a lot of human feces laying around on the ground and I knew flies transmitted a lot of things from landing on animal feces but then that brings up the point of it needing a human resevoir. If it is like Salmonella would there only be certain species that required humans and others that could be in animals, therefore allowing some species to be transmitted by flies landing on animal feces and transmitting the bacteria
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing how virulent this organism is. For my case study I had Shigella flexneri and one of the many things I found out about this organism is that it invades the epithelium of the colon, causing shigellosis. Shigella sonnei is responsible for causing 2/3 of the cases of shigellosis in the U.S. and S. flexneri is responsible for the rest. Rare in the U.S., S. dysenteriae type 1 is responsible for deadly epidemics in developing countries.
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