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Prevalence of Enterohemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) Marler and Clark Retail Ground Beef Baseline Study: Phase 3. Introduction. IEH has been commissioned by Marler and Clark to conduct a baseline study to determine the prevalence of non-O157 EHEC in ground beef.
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Prevalence of Enterohemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) Marler and Clark Retail Ground Beef Baseline Study: Phase 3
Introduction • IEH has been commissioned by Marler and Clark to conduct a baseline study to determine the prevalence of non-O157 EHEC in ground beef. • The project involves analysis of 5,070 ground beef samples purchased at retail markets throughout the country. • IEH accepted the project with the condition that the names of the manufacturing establishments would not be released.
Enterohemorrhagic (EHEC): Pathogenic Shiga Toxin Producing E. coli (pSTEC) • Several other serotypes of EHEC have been associated with HC, and HUS • These serotypes are difficult to test for, mainly due to lack of convenient markers to allow for their detection • Another impediment is lack of regulatory definition for the target organisms
Challenges in Defining EHEC/pSTEC • Up to 20% of ground beef samples at retail can contain E. coli that produce Stx, great majority of these STEC strains lack the ability to cause illness in humans: • Stx is phage borne, generic E. coli can get infected with the phage • Stx alone is not sufficient to produce illness other factors such as eae, or subtilase are needed • All major serotypes of EHEC also contain EPEC members
The IEH Definition • An E. coli strain is deemed to be EHEC/pSTEC if it: • Carries/produces at least one form of Stx • The strain should also be eae or Subtilase positive • All isolates will be serotyped to determine if they belong to one of the common serotypes in the USA (O26, O45, O111, O121, O145) • Other serotypes will also be considered to be EHEC/pSTEC if they possess the appropriate virulence factors
Human isolates of non-O157 STEC, by serogroup, 1983-2002 % of isolates 55 O groups, each <1% N = 940 isolates 70% Brooks, JID 2005;192:1422
Conclusion • A total of 5070 retail ground beef samples were analyzed for the presence of non-O157 EHECs • 301 samples were presumptive for the EHECs, 86 samples were confirmed, and 30 of the 86 belonged to the CDC-6 serotypes • 138 of the 5070 samples were presumptive positive for Salmonella, 86 of the 138 were confirmed positives for Salmonella.
Conclusions • Substantial number of positives have the Subtilase/Stx genotypes • We have found some of the more pathogenic serotypes which are not included in the CDC-6 • From a public health point of view the CDC-6 approach is flawed • The results of the current study are based on N=1 sampling plan, as such, the data is an underestimation of the burden of the target organisms