Escherichia Coli 0157:h7

Escherichia coli 0157:H7 OR (E. coli) is a food born pathogen that can cause serious illness or if left untreated can cause death. One of the obvious symptoms of E. coli is bloody diarrhea although not all forms of E coli have the same symptoms. The main toxins all strains of E. coli produce are called shiga toxins, the toxins alone are not able to make E. coli pathogenic it needs the presence of other virulence markers. The symptoms can easily be confused with other illnesses or diseases. It starts with mild diarrhea and mild stomach cramps and progressively gets worse. The diarrhea starts containing more and more blood and the abdominal pain slowly gets more intense. As the symptoms get worse several life threatening conditions may occur, your body starts losing platelets and destroying your red blood cells you slowly start to produce less urine and your kidneys begin to fail. Other complications include seizures, coma, stroke, pancreatis, and hypertension. Another serious complication commonly associated with E. coli is significant central nervous system deterioration this symptom is restricted to adults

E. coli can be found in ground beef, poultry, seafood, and even in highly acidic salami. Carriers of E. coli include cattle deer's sheep even vegetables, unpasteurized milk, apples juice and even local water systems.

E. coli is a big problem mostly because it can grow and live for long amounts of time especially in places where we keep our food like in the refrigerator. The other big problem is its ability to do so much harm with such a low infectious dose. Some treatments can help if you do get E. coli, dehydration is a big issue you should drink many fluids and you can you should get to a hospital to get treated with intravenous fluids to prevent so mush stress to the kidneys. You should not use antidiarrheal medicine because they may make the symptoms worse by making you hold on to the E. coli longer. Other treatments exist such as antimicrobial therapy but are highly controversial due to the fact that they could be harmful.

H.A.C.C.P. is a system that when followed is the most effective way of preventing the E. coli infection, some of the difficulties in controlling or keeping track of the infection are the low incidences of E. coli make it difficult to test for the pathogen. Other problems in preventing it include the resistance to acid washing in meat the only way to truly rid the meat of E. coli is to put it