Tag Archives: Fair

Two children hospitalized with E. coli, maybe linked to Indiana fair

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At least two children from Rush County are critically ill after getting E. coli poisoning, and health officials are now looking into whether the children got sick at the Rush County Fair.

Four-year-old Kathleen Ragan (right) is at Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital in Indianapolis, undergoing dialysis for hemolytic-uremic syndrome. She’s one of four reported cases of E. coli. Fox59 News has received reports that Kathleen along with three other children may have contracted the disease while attending the county fair.

Kathleen’s mother says she did use hand sanitizer as she petted animals there, but her symptoms of fatigue, diarrhea and bloody stools started the day after the fair ended.
 

E. coli O157:H7 linked to Western Fair in London, Canada, again, 10 years after 159 sickened

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There are more people tragically sick with E. coli O157:H7 from what looks like another petting zoo.

But this would be especially tragic – or hopelessly sad — if proven.

In 1999, 159 people, mainly children, were thought to be sickened with E. coli O157:H7 traced to goat and sheep at the 1999 Western Fair in London, Ontario. That’s in Canada.

Scott Weese, a clinical studies professor at the University of Guelph (that’s also in Canada) and colleagues reported in the July 2007 edition of Clinical Infectious Diseases that in a study of 36 petting zoos in Ontario between May and October of 2006, they observed infrequent hand washing, food sold and consumed near the animals, and children being allowed to drink bottles or suck on pacifiers in the petting area.

There’s been several outbreaks linked to petting zoos and state fairs in the U.K., Vancouver and Denver; and that’s just this year. A complete table of outbreaks is available at http://barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu/uploads/file/Petting%20zoo%20outbreaks%20chart%20bites(1).pdf.

Now, 10 years later, initial reports are emerging that four people who visited the Western Fair Agri-plex (that’s in London, Ontario, Canada) sometime between September 11 and 20, 2009, have been infected with the same strain of E. coli O157:H7.

The health unit is asking anyone who developed severe diarrhea after visiting the Western Fair to contact them at (519) 663-5317 ext 2330.

Petting zoos and the fair

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The North Carolina State fair is firing up here in Raleigh (the doors open to public on Thursday). I’ve never been to a state fair and am looking forward to participating in this slice of Americana. I’m all over tasting the fair foods like funnel cakes and turkey legs but I’ll probably stay away from the deep fried butter (freeze sticks of butter, cut off 2 tablespoons, put it on a stick, bread it like chicken, and deep fry it).

The fair also brings petting zoo risks. The UK and Vancouver (Canada) have had recent tragic petting zoo stories and over at wormsandgerms Scott Weese detailed some of the things he saw at a recent Ontario event. I’m curious to see what the N.C. State Fair has for risk management tools, and if anyone is using them. 

Laura Hendley, frequent contributor to the foodsafe listserv, wrote a letter to her local paper detailing her praise over what she saw at a Helena (MT) event: 

The Jim Darcy School PTA provided a petting zoo and pony rides at the recent Helena Education Foundation carnival on Sept. 20, at Memorial Park. Located at the exit to the petting zoo were two temporary hand-washing stations set up with potable water jugs filled with warm water, soap, paper towels and catch buckets. There was also hand sanitizer available.

Good stuff, without the tools it’s difficult to practice good hand hygiene.

But just having the tools there might not be enough. Like we’ve seen with norovirus, it’s a good idea to engage the petting zoo target audience (parents and kids) with compelling risk-reduction messages and conduct some sort of evaluation (no matter how crude) to see whether they work.


Safe Food Caf? – Petting zoos and their risk

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The International Food Safety Network’s Safe Food Café campaign has returned with a new video aimed at petting zoos. E. coli outbreaks have been linked to petting zoos in recent years that have resulted in hundreds ill. This has resulted in safety measures being stepped up around the animals. Make sure to stay tuned to The Safe Food Café on YouTube for more reports.

E. coli outbreak traced to Oregon fair — again

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The Oregonian is reporting that seven people who attended the Clackamas County Fair contracted E. coli bacteria.

William Keene, an epidemiologist for the Oregon Public Health Division, said this year’s outbreak is larger than the one from the Clackamas County Fair in 2006, when the bacteria infected four people, sending one to the hospital.

Fair spokeswoman Heather Alexander said that next year, Clackamas County Fair officials plan to make more hand-washing stations available and post more signs urging people to wash their hands.

Somehow that seems too little, too late.

Bill Marler on line 1

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Fall fair season is fast approaching, and more than ever, promoters are proactively and publicly saying, this is what we do to reduce the risk of food safety problems, this is what we do to reduce the risk of problems with petting zoos.

Pennsylvania’s Centre County Grange Encampment and Fair published an extensive list of risks and steps to reduce risks yesterday.

Today it was Kentucky, promoting the safety steps undertaken by state and local health-types to reduce food safety risks.

It’s a refreshing change from the defensive-it’s-not-me stance adopted by many other groups specializing in Paleolithic-era communications, such as the Canadian Produce Marketing Association, whose president today published an op-ed in a small Canadian paper (so small it doesn’t have a web presence, but it was in FSnet and is on our web site) claiming that fresh produce is the "the safest fresh food group" based on a Public Health Agency of Canada study that apparently the industry, but no one else, has already seen.

More about this later.