Sedwick County warns of Shigella outbreak

A health warning for parents, as Sedgwick County warns it is experiencing an outbreak of Shigella.

Residents reported 23 cases of it in the first two and a half months of 2009, more than all of last year's 20 total cases.

The shigella bacteria causes diarrhea, fever, vomiting, and cramps. You'll catch it a day or two after you're exposed to it - it can last as long as a week.

Of those 23 cases reported so far this year, about half of them were in children under the age of 10.

For toddlers Molly, Owen, and the rest of their class at the Wichita State Child Development Center, days like Monday are perfect for the playground. And for every child you see on the slide or the swing set, there's about as many diseases their teachers have to make sure they don't catch.

The Center's Director, Laurie Spence, listed them off from memory: "mumps, measels, rubella, chicken pox, pink eye, head lice," and then she laughed. "All that fun stuff."

Now parents can add shigella to that list. The bacteria causes days of diarrhea, and it's more likely to happen in toddlers who aren't fully toilet-trained, although anyone can get it.

"We don't have a lot of direct dealings with it because it is so infrequent," said Spence. "I think our last case was 7 years ago."

The Sedgwick County Health Department says the bacteria is passed through fecal matter - so if someone doesn't wash their hands properly after using the restroom, they may get it, or transmit it.

The toddlers under Spence's care must wash their hands several times a day, a key way to prevent shigella or any other outbreak. So staff members teach kids how to wash their hands early in life, in the hope they'll learn to lather up later.

While the kids sleep during nap time, the staff makes sure to clean the classroom. Disinfectant wipes slide across balls, plastic toys, and books - and surface the children may touch.

"What we're doing now," said Spence about their cleaning efforts, "I think, is spot on. I think we're doing all we can do to prevent it already."

Parents appreciate the effort; but say you can't kill all the germs on a two year old. "It's just one of those things, I think it comes with the territory," said Owen's mother, Michelle Jarboe. "But you hope that they don't get it. And you hope that all the hand washing and all that stuff that they do helps prevent it."

Shigella can also be passed through food handlers who don't wash their hands thoroughly.