OLYMPIA — State officials have confirmed they are working on finding a link between common strands of identified E. coli bacteria cases in Washington and Oregon.
But they are not calling it an outbreak.
“We are in the process of conducting a cluster investigation,” said Kathryn MacDonald, food-borne illness specialist for Washington State Department of Health.
“We can’t say how many cases are connected right now, but that’s what were trying to figure out.
“We know we do have other cases that are connected, but right now but at this point we don’t think there is an outbreak.”
MacDonald said the E. coli strand found in a case in Jefferson County recently matched other cases near Seattle and Portland, Ore.
Erik Hidle, 23, a reporter for the Peninsula Daily News, was admitted to Jefferson Healthcare hospital with extreme abdominal pain on Sept. 3.
It was later discovered that he was ill with E. coli 0157:H7, a strand which causes severe illness.
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