Medical News Quiz
Take a look at the first couple of paragraphs from the Associated Press article “Bacterial Outbreak Sickens Missouri Tots” and tell me what the mistake is:
Youngsters in the St. Louis area have been hit hard in the last six months by an outbreak of shigellosis, an infectious disease that isn’t typically life-threatening but can cause severe flu-like symptoms.
Since Nov. 1, 648 people statewide _ primarily kids ages 4 and younger and their caregivers _ have come down with shigellosis, and most of the children attend day care centers. All but about 100 were in the region that includes St. Louis and surrounding counties, said Larry Phelan, an epidemiologist for the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services.
The disease is typically characterized by diarrhea, headaches, nausea, vomiting, stomach aches and cramps.
Link to the full article at seattlepi.com
Other quizzes
May 11th, 2007 at 10:23 am
Guessing off the top of my head- those aren’t actually symptoms of flu. Of course, I’ve heard stomach bugs called flu before, so it may be a regional thing.
May 11th, 2007 at 10:35 am
Certainly an illness with vomiting as a primary symptom would have been Called “Stomach flu” by my parents, but we were perfectly well aware of the difference between that and influenza, and the AP should darned well use the correct terms.
May 11th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
According to MeSH shigellosis is better classified as a form of dysentery. Why not just say the kiddies have a form of dysentery or would a quick bit of research be too much to ask of the fourth estate?
May 11th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
Those are not flu like symptoms. Even I can see that!
May 11th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
If it is a bacteria, can we call it an infectous disease?
May 13th, 2007 at 7:47 am
My standard answer to a patient complaining of “flu-like symptoms” is to ask, “what does that mean to you, because flu gets blamed for lots of stuff that it doesn’t do.”
May 14th, 2007 at 8:55 am
Shigella causes terrible bloody diarrhea, as opposed to watery diarrhea. That’s got to be the error.
It IS extremely infectious– the bug with the lowest dose that can cause the most resulting illness.
May 31st, 2007 at 9:06 pm
The epidemiologist from the senior health place is talking about a disease that is primarily affecting children.Children aren’t seniors.
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