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What we know about the cyclosporiasis outbreak linked to produce · INSIGHT TODAY

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Thirty one states are now reporting cases of a parasitic
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: intestinal disease that is making life miserable for those who
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: contract it. And while the US has seen outbreaks of
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  Speaker 1: cyclosporiasis in the past, the some four thousand reported cases
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  Speaker 1: this summer are much higher than normal and raising real
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  Speaker 1: concerns about the illness. William Brangham has more on what
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  Speaker 1: you need to.
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  Speaker 2: Know right now. Officials can't pinpoint the exact source or
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  Speaker 2: sources of this outbreak. It's a food or water borne
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  Speaker 2: disease caused by a parasite cyclospora in Pinpointing precisely where
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  Speaker 2: it's coming from is a challenge. Michigan is bearing the
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  Speaker 2: brunt with more than twenty six hundred reported cases, including
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  Speaker 2: forty four that have landed people in the hospital. Joining
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  Speaker 2: us to explain what all this means and how to
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  Speaker 2: stay healthy is doctor omer Awan. He's at the University
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  Speaker 2: of Maryland School of Medicine. Doctor Awan, thank you so
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  Speaker 2: much for being here to start off with, If I
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  Speaker 2: were to to ingest this parasite, how do I know
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  Speaker 2: that I've got it? What are the symptoms people should
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  Speaker 2: look out for?
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  Speaker 3: Well, the typical symptoms, William are things like nausea, fatigue, bloating,
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  Speaker 3: and of course explosive watery diarrhea. And that's the symptom
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  Speaker 3: that's been getting a lot of intention because this is
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  Speaker 3: really different because most stomach bugs, usually the watery diarrhea
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  Speaker 3: lasts about two or three days. With the cases of cyclosporiasis,
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  Speaker 3: the diarrhea can last weeks, if not months, And that's
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  Speaker 3: what makes this so problematic. And if you have diarrhea
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  Speaker 3: for more than perhaps two or three days, you should
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  Speaker 3: really talk to your doctor, get tested, and get treated
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  Speaker 3: so that you can feel better.
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  Speaker 2: And I understand that the incubation period for the parasite's eggs,
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  Speaker 2: once they're in your body, it can take days or
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  Speaker 2: even a week or more for you to start showing symptoms,
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  Speaker 2: which seems like it makes it very difficult to identify
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  Speaker 2: what thing it was that you ate or drank that
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  Speaker 2: caused the problem.
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  Speaker 4: Exactly right.
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  Speaker 3: The incubation period can be anywhere from two days to
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  Speaker 3: fourteen days, so that's two weeks. So many of us
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  Speaker 3: don't really remember what we ate two weeks ago. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: I can't even remember what I ate two weeks ago,
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  Speaker 3: So it's very problematic and it makes it challenging to
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  Speaker 3: really know and track down what's causing these cases. And
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  Speaker 3: that's exactly why the CDC and the United States don't
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  Speaker 3: know exactly what the source is for all these thousands
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  Speaker 3: of cases, because we don't know exactly what food, what produce,
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  Speaker 3: or what brand is leading to all these cases that
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  Speaker 3: we're seeing here currently in the United States.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, as we mentioned, this is not a new bug.
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  Speaker 2: We've seen outbreaks of this before, but this one seems
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  Speaker 2: particularly large. Do you have a sense as to why
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  Speaker 2: this one's so big.
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  Speaker 3: Well, one of the reasons is exactly what we just stated, William,
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  Speaker 3: that we don't know what the source is. We don't
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  Speaker 3: know what the exact produce is or the brand of
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  Speaker 3: the produce. Now, historically most cases have been related to
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  Speaker 3: contaminated food from produce things like lettuce, cilantro, basil, raspberries,
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  Speaker 3: even but we haven't pinned that down. And because we
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  Speaker 3: haven't pinned it down, that means that these cases are
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  Speaker 3: likely to disseminate people are still eating the contaminated food
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  Speaker 3: that's leading to so many cases. The other is the
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  Speaker 3: incubation period that we've talked about, Because the incubation period
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  Speaker 3: can be two weeks. Even if we were to stop
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  Speaker 3: and contain the source today, there will still be increased
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  Speaker 3: cases a week from now, two weeks from now because
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  Speaker 3: of this incubation period. And then finally, what I would
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  Speaker 3: say is that this usually peaks in the summer. Cyclospiroiasis
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  Speaker 3: usually thrives on heat and humidity, and we typically see
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  Speaker 3: a lot of cases from May to August. Certainly not
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  Speaker 3: the magnitude that we're seeing currently, but we do see
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  Speaker 3: cases in these summer months.
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  Speaker 2: Some critics have pointed out that CDC last year stepped
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  Speaker 2: back from some of its food borne sort of poison
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  Speaker 2: path surveillance. Is that contributing to this problem at all
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  Speaker 2: or not?
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  Speaker 3: I would say absolutely it is, William, for a couple
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  Speaker 3: of reasons. One is, remember that the AHHS and the
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  Speaker 3: federal government laid off a lot of CDC employees, many
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  Speaker 3: of them were the very employees that would track these
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  Speaker 3: particular outbreaks. And the other is that from July of
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  Speaker 3: twenty twenty five last year, the CDC has no longer
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  Speaker 3: required reporting cyclist rises. It has become optional to report
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  Speaker 3: this to the CDC's Food Board Disease Active Surveillance Network.
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  Speaker 3: So this is precisely why we don't have a good
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  Speaker 3: handled exactly the number of cases. If you remember, the
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  Speaker 3: CDC has reported less than one thousand cases, but we
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  Speaker 3: know that there are more than three or four thousand cases.
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  Speaker 3: I mean there are more than two thousand, six hundred
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  Speaker 3: cases in Michigan alone. So the states have more of
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  Speaker 3: an accurate representation than actually even the federal government the CDC.
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  Speaker 3: So these two reasons are really the main reasons why
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  Speaker 3: our response outbreak has really been for cyclostubriasis.
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  Speaker 2: You mentioned that people should go see their doctor if
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  Speaker 2: they have these symptoms. We should say this is not
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  Speaker 2: a fatal illness and there is an antibiotic treatment for it.
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  Speaker 2: But what kinds of things should people do to try
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  Speaker 2: to protect themselves.
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  Speaker 3: The good use is that there are treatments available. You
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  Speaker 3: typically take a antibiotic known as backtrum for about seven
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  Speaker 3: to ten days. Overwhelmingly, most people feel much better. Their
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  Speaker 3: symptoms resolve with maybe a weak treatment of antibiotics. There's
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  Speaker 3: a lot of common sense tactics that people can use.
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  Speaker 3: One of course, is just washing your hands for twenty seconds,
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  Speaker 3: making sure that we wash produce with running water, making
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  Speaker 3: sure you really scrub that produce, refrigerating produce as soon
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  Speaker 3: as you get back from the grocery store. But ultimately,
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  Speaker 3: the only way you can really eliminate cyclospriasis is by
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  Speaker 3: cooking it. Cooking it at a temperature of one hundred
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  Speaker 3: and fifty eight degrees fahrenheit. If you do that, you
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  Speaker 3: eliminate it. But just by doing those simple common sense measures,
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  Speaker 3: you can significantly reduce your chances of getting cyclospriasis.
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  Speaker 2: Doctor omar Awan of the University of Maryland Medical School,
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  Speaker 2: thank you so much for being here.
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  Speaker 4: Brit Pleasure. Thanks William.
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