E. Coli Case Study 3.07

An investigation was necessary to find the cause of the outbreak, and how to stop it from continuing to spread. The campus clinic was interested in testing the following nine patients: Sue, Jill, Anthony, Wanda, Maggie, Maria, Arnie, Marco, and Alvin. All of the students have similar symptoms and agreed to being tested except for Alvin.

What are the risk factors for infection and development of septic shock? Identify those that applied to Mr. Roberts. (5 points)

Reportedly, St. Luke's Hospital received an numerous amounts of patients flocking to the emergency room. At first, it seems like a lot of people were just getting sick, until doctors and nurses all began to notice one prevailing factor with every patient. All of the patients had reported eating at Mama C's Coffee Shop between August 4th and August 7th. The Health deaprtment traveled to the shop straightaway and began quickly collecting samples from inside in order to ascertain the reason behind the sudden upsurge of illness.

“Don’t tell me you’re getting sick too.” Daniel Rankin said to his friend, classmate, and ex-girlfriend Zoe Amba as she coughed while loading her bag into his brother’s truck. It was an oddly empty day at school that day, as most of the kids were sick; their numbers dwindled each minute as another student would enter the health office where Daniel’s brother was helping out.

2. List what it is caused by (specific scientific and common names of the organism: Escherichia coli

The above condition is a great platform for applying the epidemiology triangle. This will show the correlation of how this infection can become an epidemic if intervention is not swift. In addition, the supporting data from credible websites will be an invaluable asset in determining the causation of the condition. For this case, I shall conduct an investigation of the E. coli outbreak at the Cleveland County Fair in North Carolina.

It was concluded that out of the 44 wells pipetted, 13 were magenta meaning they were positive for Coliforms. After placing both the 50ml tube and well plate under the ultra violet light, it was found that only one well plate was positive for Escherichia coli despite the fact that the 50ml sample mixed with the COLISURE packet was negative for Escherichia coli. The calculation for the total volume dispensed in the wells was calculated and was 0.2ml x 44 wells = 8.8ml. Then, the information gathered about the number of wells positive and negative for Escherichia coli was then plugged into the equation that will result in the number of cells per 8.8ml for both wells positive for Coliform and for wells positive with Escherichia coli. Using the calculation (1/V) x ln(total # of wells/# of negative wells) it was concluded that there were 1.75 cells per 8.8ml in the positive Coliform wells and 15.4 cells per 8.8ml in the one well positive for Escherichia coli. To find these answers the following equation was used for both Coliforms and Escherichia coli: (1/.2) x ln(44/31)= 1.75 Coliform cells per 8.8ml of sample, and (1/.2) x ln(44/43)= 15.4 cells of Escherichia coli per 8.8ml of

Use the cotton swab to streak the five labeled nutrient agar plates with the E. Coli K12 bacteria from the tube.

Escherichia coli is a gram-negative bacillus that is facultatively anaerobic and which is classified as part of the Enterobacteriaceae family. It is most commonly found in the lower intestines of warm blooded organisms although it is capable of surviving outside of the host for an extended time and may be spread through contact of infected fecal matter as well as personal contact with an infected host. Several strains of E. coli live in endotherms as part of the normal flora of the gut and provide their hosts with benefits such as the production of vitamin K2 and the prevention of establishment of the intestines by pathogenic bacteria thereby forming a mutualistic relationship with their hosts. There are five strains of E. coli which can cause gastroenteritis in people through the production of shiga toxins leading to illness and even death. However E. coli has been a large part of many valuable contributions to science for the last 60 years due to its genetic simplicity as well as its fast growth and inexpensive culturing requirements.

Escherichia is a genus of aerobic gram-negative rod-shaped bacteria of the family Enterobacteriaceae that form acid and gas on many carbohydrates, such as dextrose and lactose, but not acetone, which include occasional pathogenic forms, including some strains of E. coli which are normally present in the human intestine as well as other forms which typically occur in soil and water (Webster). Escherichia coli is a gram-negative bacilli that rarely varies in shape and size and when stained often resemble safety pins because the ends of some bacilli stain more densely than does the middle; which is a characteristic called bipolar staining which is common in enteric gram-negative bacilli (ASM). Gram negative cells have a thin cell wall layer and will stain red to pink. The staining process is the same as Gram positive, requiring four steps: applying a primary stain, adding a mordant, then rapid decolorization and completing with a counter stain. Applying the alcohol for decolorization dissolves the outer membrane and leaves small holes in the thin peptidoglycan layer through which the crystal violet-iodine diffuse. The gram-negative bacteria is colorless after the decolorization; therefore adding safranin

Close your eyes and picture this... it was the first day of school and an eight-year-old girl walked into her classroom. She was coughing every second. A cough sounded so terrifying and so asthmatic. Her name was Lucia and she had red marks on her forehead that looked like she scratched her head constantly. She sat next to another girl named Sarah who after coming in contact with, also began to cough repeatedly. Then Sarah was suddenly absent from school the following day. Sarah had a 104-degree fever. Sarah had red irritating marks around her whole body. Sarah felt like she lived in a sauna everywhere she went. This wasn’t right how this illness spread to Sarah. It wasn’t right how Sarah contracted this illness. Is it possible to say that

In the school they’ve been having a statistic cases of diphtheria, which trends out your daughter has been going to during the month. That should’ve seemingly been the reason why she got sick. 2,100 deaths have occurred freshly and more might occurred if there ain’t an antidote.

(4)Lost her sight and hearing due to an unknown illness. (5)How did she contract such a virus?

We had two controls for each lab section which were facilitated by the Teaching Assistants. The controls consisted of using the same strain of E.Coli rubbing it on an Petri dish same as all of the actual tests but instead of using a triclosan saturated round of paper, the control used water. After every incubation

The materials that will be used for this experiment are. Overnight to 24-Hour culture of E.coli in TSB. T4 bacteriophage. We will have 8 screw cap tubes that contain 4.5ml of sterile agar that are melted and cooled in 55C water bath. 8 TSA plates were used. 1 tube containing 3ml of TSB was used. We had 2 screw cap tubes, they each contained 9.9ml of TSB. We also had 1ml pipettes with pipette pumps. We also had 1 15ml sterile centrifuge tube. A Bunsen burner. We also had a incubator that was set at 37C. Some micropipettes were used as well as a table top centrifuge.