80 Illnesses Linked to Shigella Outbreak; CA Seafood Restaurant Closed

Shigella is generally transmitted through a fecal-oral route.

Mariscos San Juan at 205 N. 4th St. in downtown San Jose, CA, was closed Oct. 18 after the Santa Clara County Public Health Department connected the seafood restaurant with an outbreak of Shigella that reportedly may have sickened at least 80 people.

The restaurant remains closed, and Santa Clara health officials say 11 of the Shigella victims have been treated in intensive care units at area hospitals.

All of those stricken with the intestinal infection that causes fever, abdominal pain and diarrhea report dining at the San Jose restaurant on either the previous Friday or Saturday.

Shigella is an enteropathogen not frequently found in foods that affects humans. The clinical disease is a dysentery diarrhea that can be treated successfully with antibiotics. Local health officials said that they expect the number of those sickened will grow, and they issued a request for action by all clinicians in the area.

The disease is the result of bacteria that passes from improperly washed hands of one person to the mouth of another person, often through handling contaminated objects or food. The disease is easily passed among childcare professionals and food preparers.

Clinicians treating suspected Shigella patients are being asked to test stool cultures and order antimicrobial susceptibility testing and blood cultures if the person became hospitalized. Doctors were also asked to “tailor therapy based on results of susceptibility testing, recognizing that routine antimicrobial susceptibility tests for Shigella may not include some commonly available oral antibiotics.”

Area emergency rooms were reporting they were treating multiple patients with vomiting and fevers as high as 104ºF.

The downtown Mariscos San Juan is one of the restaurant chain’s three locations in San Jose. The Willow Street restaurant had its permit suspended in August. The third location on Senter Road in San Jose remains open. Santa Clara County has suspended the permits of 81 restaurants during the past six months for a variety of code violations.

Source:  https://services.sccgov.org/facilityinspection/Home/ShowDetail/PR0300496