This article needs to be updated.(January 2018) |
Date | November 1, 2015 — present |
---|---|
Location | Wisconsin, western Michigan, and Illinois, United States [1] [2] |
Type | Disease outbreak |
Cause | Elizabethkingia anophelis |
Casualties | |
Deaths | 20 [3] |
An outbreak of Elizabethkingia anophelis infections centered in Wisconsin [4] [5] is thought to have led to the death of at least 20 people in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Illinois. [6] [7] [1] [2]
As of March 2016, it was reported to be the largest outbreak of Elizabethkingia anophelis -caused disease investigated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). [8]
Human infections by E. anophelis involve the bloodstream. [4] Signs and symptoms can include fever, shortness of breath, chills, and cellulitis. [4] Confirmation requires a laboratory test. [4]
Statewide surveillance of the situation in Wisconsin was organized on January 5, 2016. [9] Cases had been reported from Columbia, Dane, Dodge, Fond du Lac, Jefferson, Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Racine, Sauk, Sheboygan, Washington, Waukesha, and Winnebago Counties); Illinois; and western Michigan as of April 13, 2016. [9] [1]
Between November 1, 2015 and March 30, 2016, 62 cases of E. anophelis infections were reported to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, Division of Public Health. [4]
The severity of the outbreak is reflected in a statement by the CDC that "the agency sees a handful of Elizabethkingia infections around the country each year, but the outbreaks rarely involve more than a couple of cases at a time. To have dozens of cases at once — and more than a third of them possibly fatal — is startling". [10]
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Elizabethkingia anophelis is a yellow-pigmented, rod-shaped, gram-negative bacterium in the Flavobacteriaceae family. Elizabethkingia is isolated from the midgut of Anopheles gambiae G3 mosquitoes reared in captivity. The genus Elizabethkingia, named for former US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) microbiologist Elizabeth O. King, also includes E. meningoseptica which causes neonatal sepsis and infections in immunocompromised persons, E. endophytica, and E. miricola.
Elizabeth Osborne King was an American microbiologist who discovered and described bacteria of medical importance at the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from the late 1940s through the early 1960s. A 1984 CDC manual dedication referred to King as "internationally known as an authority on a variety of unusual bacteria." The genera Kingella and Elizabethkingia and several species of bacteria are named to honor her for her pioneering work. King died of cancer on April 8, 1966, in Atlanta, where she is interred in Oakland Cemetery.
Elizabethkingia miricola is a species of bacterium isolated from condensation water in Space Station Mir, related to Elizabethkingia anophelis, the cause of the 2016 outbreak of Elizabethkingia anophelis human infections in Wisconsin that began in early November 2015. The genus name Elizabethkingia honors former United States Centers for Disease Control (CDC) microbiologist Elizabeth O. King, and the specific epithet is derived from combining the Russian name of the space station from which the bacterium was isolated, "Mir" meaning "peace," and the Latin "incola" meaning "inhabitant," yielding miricola, "inhabitant of the Mir space station."
Elizabethkingia is a genus of bacterium described in 2005, named after Elizabeth O. King, the discoverer of the type species. Before this genus being formed in 2005, many of the species of Elizabethkingia were classified in the Chryseobacterium genus. Elizabethkingia has been found in soil, rivers, and reservoirs worldwide.
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