LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Escherichia Coli: United States
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Escherichia coli O157:H7 infection has been documented several times in dogs9,26 but never in cats. All the reports are associated with the farm environment. One of the reports identified an outbreak of E coli O157:H7, where epidemiologically related strains of O157:H7 were isolated from a dog, a pony from the same farm, and a child that developed bloody diarrhea after the infection.9 Although in this study the cattle and the goat had negative test results, the limited number of samples taken and the fact the agent is shed intermittently does not rule out cattle as the source of the pathogens. In a study of the sources of E coli O157:H7 in feedlots and farms in the northwestern United States, 65 dog samples and 33 cat samples were obtained and analyzed for the presence of E coli O157:H7. Results for all cat samples were negative, and 3.1% of the dog samples tested positive. The probable source of the bacterium for the dogs on these farms could have been the cattle directly or the water troughs.26 In a comparison study27 using a newly developed phage typing scheme for E coli O157:H7, it was determined that an STEC strain isolated from a dog was of the same phage type as E coli O157:H7 isolates obtained from humans.
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Escherichia coli O157:H7 is a leading cause of foodborne illness. Based on a 1999 estimate, 73,000 cases of infection and 61 deaths occur in the United States each year. In the ten CDC Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet) sites (which represent 15% of the US population), there was a 29% decline in E. coli O157:H7 infection since 1996-98 (see FoodNet Reports).
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In February 2004, the Okinawa Prefectural Chubu Health Center (OCHC) and the Okinawa Prefectural Institute of Health and Environment (OIHE), Japan, investigated three cases of Escherichia coli O157:H7 infection in a Japanese family associated with eating ground beef. Public health officials from multiple agencies in Japan and the United States collaborated on this investigation, which resulted in a voluntary recall of approximately 90,000 pounds of frozen ground beef in the United States and at U.S. military bases in the Far East. This was the first reported instance in which Japanese public health officials identified contaminated, commercially distributed ground beef that was produced in the United States. This report summarizes epidemiologic and laboratory investigations conducted by OCHC and OIHE. The results underscore the importance of using standardized molecular subtyping methods throughout the world to facilitate international public health communication and intervention.
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