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An Inter-Familial Outbreak of Yersinia enterocolitica Enteritis

List of authors.
  • L. T. Gutman, M.D.,
  • E. A. Ottesen, M.D.,
  • T. J. Quan, Ph.D.,
  • P. S. Noce, M.D.,
  • and S. L. Katz, M.D.

Abstract

An outbreak of Yersinia enterocolitica enteritis involved 16 of 21 persons in four related and neighboring families. The illness, which led to two appendectomies and two deaths, was characterized by fever (87 per cent), diarrhea (69 per cent), severe abdominal pain (62 per cent), vomiting (56 per cent), pharyngitis (31 per cent), headache (18 per cent) and leukocytosis. Four children had acute depression of serum albumin, with spontaneous recovery to normal levels after hospitalization. One child demonstrated an elevated total IgM antibody level.

Serologic studies of 18 members of the families all demonstrated a positive response by the passive hemagglutination test. Eight persons had diagnostically important titers of 1:512 or greater, and all had symptomatic illness.

The source of infection was suggested to have been a bitch and its litter of sick puppies. The sequential onset of disease indicated that, once it had been introduced into the households, person-to-person transmission had occurred. (N Engl J Med 288:1372–1377, 1973)

Funding and Disclosures

Supported in part by grants from the David T. Smith Fellowship in Thoracic Diseases and from the North Carolina Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases Association, Inc., and by a grant (FR-05405) from the Division of Research Facilities and Resources, National Institutes of Health.

We are indebted to the persons who enabled this study to be accomplished, and in particular to Drs. Sandra Smith, Robert Hennessy, Barbara Monroe and Robert Rixse, to Mr. Claude Harrison and Diane Evans, all of Duke University, and to Katherine L. Wolff, of the Plague Section, Ecological Investigations Program, Fort Collins.

Author Affiliations

From the departments of Pediatrics and Pathology, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, N.C., and the Plague Section, Ecological Investigations Program, Center for Disease Control, Fort Collins, Col. (address reprint requests to Dr. Gutman at P.O. Box 3971, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, N.C. 27710).

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