United States: The health department records from Multnomah County indicate Shigella infections hit their maximum during the winter months since 2012 because this pattern repeated itself in both years, and the January numbers surged beyond earlier peaks.
Know about Shigella
In the past, physicians identified dysentery as severe diarrhea caused by Shigella bacteria in humans, with fever symptoms and exhaustion.
County health authorities define Shigella transmission by how fecal bacteria carrying the infection move from one individual to another through oral contact.
From November 2023 to January 2024, Multnomah County documented 72 Shigella infections, excluding those cases where patients contracted the disease overseas, kgw.com reported.
During this period, 105 cases of Shigella were reported, with a specific total of 40 confirmed infections happening in January.
Since 2012, the number of Shigella cases in Multnomah County has been growing, and the county recently recorded antibiotic-resistant strains among its local infections.
Reasons for its spread
The homeless population experienced most of the outbreaks because their limited access to sanitation services facilitates the transmission of diseases, as the majority of transmission-related infections happened in Old Town.
The culprit bacteria originate in food outbreaks, but transmission mostly occurs between people through direct sexual contact and by touching unclean objects, which leads to mouth contamination.
Mild to life-threatening illnesses exist, but individuals usually acquire fatal infections upon contracting Shigella dysenteriae only when it spreads from countries with deficient sanitation systems, kgw.com reported.
Within Oregon, two main strains of Shigella bacteria exist: Shigella flexneri and Shigella sonnei, which produce lower severity of illness among infected individuals.
More than 80 percent of cases in Multnomah County were contracted locally instead of any international connection involved, according to the city health reports.