Epidemiologic Notes and Reports Campylobacter Outbreak
Associated with Certified Raw Milk Products -- California
On May 31, 1984, 28 kindergarten children and seven adults from
a
private school of 240 students in Whittier, California, visited a
certified raw milk (CRM) bottling plant in southern California,
where
they were given ice cream, kefir, and CRM. Three to 6 days later,
several of the group began to experience fever and gastroenteritis.
Ultimately, nine children and three adults became ill, and most of
them were absent from school. Studies on stools from these 12
individuals for routine bacterial pathogens showed nine positive
and
three negative for Campylobacter jejuni. Stools were obtained from
nine non-ill children in another kindergarten class; these stools
did
not yield C. jejuni. The only common foods these children (ill and
non-ill) ate were hamburgers, which are provided every Thursday to
their school by a fast-food hamburger chain. No one else in the
school became sick.
Reported in Public Health Letter 1984;6, Los Angeles County Dept of
Human Svcs, California Morbidity (June 15, 1984), California Dept
of
Health Svcs; Enteric Diseases Br, Div of Bacterial Diseases, Center
for Infectious Diseases, CDC.
Editorial Note
Editorial Note: Other Campylobacter outbreaks have been linked to
consumption of raw milk, including CRM (1). In June 1984, 17
members
of a kindergarten class on Vancouver Island, British Columbia,
Canada,
visited a raw milk dairy; 13 drank raw milk. Nine persons became
ill
a median of 4 days after visiting the dairy. Stools from 10
persons
were cultured; three yielded C. jejuni; four did not; the results
of
three are still pending (2). During 1983, two outbreaks of
campylobacteriosis followed consumption of raw milk on
school-sponsored outings in Pennsylvania (3). Similar outbreaks
also
occurred in 1981 and 1982 in Michigan, Minnesota, and Vermont.
Technology does not presently exist to prevent contamination of raw
milk supplies by Campylobacter, which is present in the intestinal
tracts of about 40% of dairy cattle (4). Although infection may be
more common than recognized, episodes of illness often are not well
documented.
References
Potter ME, Blaser MJ, Sikes RK, Kaufmann AF, Wells JG. Human
Campylobacter infection associated with certified raw milk. Am
J
Epidemiol 1983;117:475-83.
Kindergarten field trip to a farm, June 25, 1984, Vancouver
Island. Disease Surveillance, British Columbia 1984;5:201-3.
CDC. Campylobacteriosis associated with raw milk
consumption--Pennsylvania. MMWR 1983;32:337-8, 344.
Martin WT, Patton CM, Morris GK, Potter ME, Puhr ND. Selective
enrichment broth medium for isolation of Campylobacter jejuni.
J
Clin Microbio 1983;17:853-5.
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