Pbhl 3100 Week 1 Case Study Of Salmonellosis

PBHL 3100 Group #4 Foodborne Illness Salmonellosis Foodborne illness, more commonly called food poisoning, is the cause of nearly 48 million illnesses, and an estimated 3,000 deaths in the United States annually. Food poisoning is caused by a bacterial, viral, or parasitic contamination of food. It can happen at any point during the food production realm; growing, harvesting, processing, storing, shipping, or preparing. There are several bacterial, viral, or parasitic agents that can cause food poisoning. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 90% of these illnesses are due to the seven most common pathogens: Salmonella, Norovirus, Campylobacter, Toxoplasma, E. coli O157:H7, Listeria and Clostridium perfringens.
Even though majority of cases go unreported, according to 2011 estimates, Salmonella is now the second most common food poisoning agent in the United States. The CDC estimates that over one million people in the United States contract Salmonella each year, an average of 20,000 hospitalizations, and almost 400 deaths occur annually from Salmonella poisoning (Clark 2012). Salmonellosis is caused by the bacteria, Salmonella. Salmonella, discovered by an American scientist named Salmon, has been known to cause illnesses for over a century. Salmonella can cause two types of illnesses in individuals, depending on the serotype of the bacterium: nontyphoidal salmonellosis and typhoid fever. Nontyphoidal salmonellosis can be thoroughly unpleasant, but is generally self-limiting among healthy people with intact immune systems. Typhoid fever is much more serious and has a higher mortality rate than nontyphoidal salmonellosis.

Nontyphoidal Salmonellosis is a gastrointestinal illness caused by any Salmonella serotypes other than S.
Typhi and S. Paratyphi A. Onset of symptoms for this form of Salmonella usually becomes present within six to seventy-two hours after exposure to the bacteria. This subset of the illness causes nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal cramps, headaches and fever; with symptoms generally lasting four to seven days and completely tapering off within a week. Symptoms and the duration of illnesses may vary from individual to individual depending on host factors, the amount of the dose ingested, and the individual bacterium strain characteristics. In otherwise healthy people, symptoms usually vanish by themselves, but long-term arthritis may develop three to four weeks after the onset of acute symptoms due to an individual’s weak or delayed autoimmune response. Typhoid fever is a more severe, intense, and debilitating form of Salmonellosis. For those under the most serious conditions, up to 10% of people who don’t get treatment may die. Typhoid fever is caused only by the S. Typhi and S. Paratyphi A serotypes of Salmonella, both of which are found only in humans. Onset of symptoms generally occur one to three weeks after exposure to the bacteria, but sometimes may take as long as two months to surface. Symptoms of typhoid fever are much more serious and urgent; high fevers from 103° to 104°F, headaches, lethargy, loss of appetite, a rash of flat rosecolored spots, and
gastrointestinal symptoms including abdominal pains, diarrhea or constipation. The span of typhoid fever expands over a much longer period of time as well, with symptoms generally lasting two to four weeks. In people with weak immune systems, Salmonella can spread to other organs through penetration of the epithelium of the small intestine, and then into the

bloodstream. Once the Salmonella bacterium reaches the bloodstream, it is then carried to other sites of the body and cause many very serious illnesses. Salmonella spreading throughout the body can lead to Septicemia, a life-threatening infection of bacteria in the blood that occurs from severe infections, which can in turn lead to Endocarditis, the inflammation of the inside lining of the heart chambers and heart valves. Septic arthritis may also occur, in which the infection directly affects the joints. Chronic infection of the gallbladder may also occur, which may cause the infected person to then become a carrier. Typhoid illness is usually associated with sewage-contaminated drinking water, or crops irrigated with sewage-contaminated water. This type of bacterium is difficult to wash off of food, even with soapy water. Important measures for preventing foodborne illnesses from Salmonella include thorough cooking, hand washing, keeping raw foods separated from cooked foods, and keeping foods at the correct temperature. Salmonellosis causing bacteria is widely dispersed in nature. It can colonize in the digestive tract of humans and in several types of animals, including, livestock, domestic pets, and wildlife. Salmonella may also live in environments such as pond-water sediment. It is spread through fecal transmission into the water supplies of regions that have poor sanitary measures, which presents a huge problem to underdeveloped countries. Salmonella is usually transmitted through the fecal-oral route and through contact with contaminated water. It may, for example, contaminate meat, farm irrigation water, soil and insects, factory equipment, hands, and kitchen surfaces and utensils. Some examples of the contaminated foods are meats, poultry, milk, eggs, fish, spices, yeast, fruits, and vegetables, specifically tomatoes, peppers, & cantaloupes.

Anyone, at any age, may become infected with Salmonella.
Those with weak immune systems, the elderly, infants, people with HIV or chronic illnesses, and those on some medications are particularly vulnerable to severe illness from Salmonella (CDC 2012). People with HIV are estimated to have Salmonellosis at least 20 times more than does the general population, and they tend to have recurrent episodes. The only way to determine whether Salmonella is in fact the cause for the illness is through laboratory testing of the feces. There are currently no vaccines to prevent Salmonellosis, and antibiotic treatment is getting harder to produce each year as the Salmonella strains become more and more resistant to the treatments. To prevent Salmonellosis, people should not consume raw eggs or unpasteurized dairy products, poultry should be well-cooked, produce should be thoroughly washed, cross-contamination of foods should be avoided, and hands should always be washed after contact with feces (CDC 2012). Isolation and detection methods have been developed for many foods having prior history of Salmonella contamination. Conventional culture and identification methods may require four to six days for presumptive results. In order to prevent these bacteria from inhabiting water supplies, there needs to be more rapid and more sensitive molecular detection techniques. Direct methods for DNA extraction from bacterial cells concentrated on filters can be successfully used in place of
procedures employing cultivation for the detection of Salmonella.

Works Cited

Clark, Marler. "About Foodborne Illness." Foodborne Illness : Food Poisoning. N.p., 2012. Web. 25 Nov. 2012. .

"Salmonella." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CDC, 26 Oct. 2012. Web. 25 Nov. 2012. .

FDA Bad Bug Book: Foodborne Pathogenic Microorganisms and Natural Toxins Handbook. 2nd Edition. Abraham, et al. http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Food/FoodSafety/FoodborneIllness/FoodborneIlln essFoodbornePathogensNaturalToxins/BadBugBook/UCM297627.pdf