A San Jose seafood restaurant is at the center of a recent shigella outbreak. Friday it was announced that there are 141 cases of the bacterial infection so far.
The 141 people infected include 118 from Santa Clara County and the rest from nearby San Mateo, Alameda and Santa Cruz counties, the San Jose Mercury News reports.
Nearly all of the confirmed patients had eaten at the Mariscos San Juan Restaurant No. 3 on October 16 or 17, according to The Los Angeles Times.
By the end of last weekend, public health officials had started getting reports of the illness and twelve patients were in intensive care at local hospitals.
Shigella infection, or shigellosis, typically causes watery or bloody diarrhea, intense abdominal pain, fever and malaise. The symptoms usually begin a day or two after exposure and the illness generally last between five and seven days. In some cases, shigellosis can be fatal.
Shigellosis is very contagious and it doesn’t take much to infect a person. The bacteria typically spreads from dirty hands or fecal matter to mouths of others, in this case the diners at Mariscos. Anyone who believes they might be sick with shigella should not go to work. Those who might be infected and work with food or around children should be particularly careful.
County health experts say that careful, frequent hand washing is a particularly important step in stopping the spread of the shigella outbreak.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the owners of the restaurant, Sergio Becerra Cruz and Lourdes Garcia Becerra, are cooperating with health officials. The restaurant in which the infection was spread has been closed since the outbreak. The owners’ other restaurants, Mariscos San Juan and Mariscos San Juan No. 2, have clean bills of health and are still open.
There are at least two patients who have already filed lawsuits and more plan to take action, said the patients attorney, Bill Marler.
