Brote de shigelosis en la ciudad de Luján, Argentina

Abstract

The aim of this study was to describe an outbreak of Shigella sonnei that occurred in the city of Lujan, Buenos Aires, Argentina, in July 2012. Five individuals were affected after eating a hand-made Viennese-style pastry at a family gathering. All of them presented with fever, joint pain, chills and non-bloody diarrhea containing mucus. Stool cultures were performed in all cases and the samples taken from the pastry ingredients were analyzed microbiologically. S.sonnei was isolated and identified in all the patients involved as well as in the almond cream filling. The isolates were analyzed for determining the antimicrobial susceptibility and genetic profiles by pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE). The results showed the genetic relationship among the isolates, confirming that the cases occurred due to the patients' exposure to the same source of infection, i.e., the almond cream. Being the almond cream an industrially-manufactured ingredient, an initial contamination could have been unlikely; however contamination might have occurred as a result of manipulation in the bakery.