Deadly Outbreak Puzzles Investigators Elizabethkingia anophelis linked to 66 cases, 21 deaths

Despite an intensive investigation, disease detectives still have no idea what caused a bacterial outbreak in three states that sickened 66 people and left 21 dead in three states this year, a CDC epidemiologist said here. The outbreak of disease associated with Elizabethkingia anophelis, a Gram-negative rod-shaped environmental bacterium that only rarely causes human disease, is the largest known, according to Maroya Walters, PhD, of the CDC. While the investigation is continuing, investigators as yet have no hypotheses that would explain where the bacteria came from, how patients were exposed, and what if anything links them, Walters told delegates at ASM Microbe 2016. http://www.medpagetoday.com/MeetingCoverage/ASMMicrobe/58659?xid=nl_mpt_DHE_2016-06-21&eun=g721819d0r