title: Shigellosis from swimming.
abstract: In Augsut 1974, 31 of 45 cases of Shigella sonnei infection in Dubuque, Iowa, were traced to swimming in an 8-km stretch of the Mississippi River. Comparison of the first case in each affected family with neighborhood controls showed a significant correlation between swimming and illness (P less than .0001). A significant association between diarrheal illness and swimming (P less than .0001) was also demonstrated by a retrospective survey of 60 families who had camped at a park beside the river; the attack rate for swimmers who got water in their mouths while swimming was 18%. They had been swimming in water where the mean fecal coliform count was 17,500 organisms per 100 ml; the federal recommended upper limit for swimming water is 200 per 100 ml. A water sample obtained at the park swimming area one month after authorities had banned swimming in the area yielded S sonnei with the same antibiogram, colicin type, and phage type as the isolates from six swimmers.¿
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D003679:Deglutition; D004196:Disease Outbreaks / Q000453:epidemiology; D004405:Dysentery, Bacillary / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology*; D005260:Female; D005759:Gastroenteritis / Q000209:etiology* / Q000382:microbiology; D006801:Humans; D007484:Iowa; D008297:Male; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012764:Shigella sonnei / Q000302:isolation & purification; D013550:Swimming; D014871:Water Microbiology; D014876:Water Pollution