COOT---ease or cooties?

 

COOT: What a nice introduction to Colby!  A stimulating camping experience.  Bonding with other first year students.  An upper class student as a role model telling tales of how to survive.   And WHAM Giardiasis!

What is Giardiasis? It is a parasitic infection of the upper small intestine caused by the organism Giardia lamblia.  Often infection causes no symptoms, however it can be responsible for mild to severe diarrhea, abdominal cramping, bulky, greasy, frothy, foul smelling bowel movements and "rotten-egg" burps. No, this isn't a re-do of the diarrhea article.  A cluster of Giardia cases has been identified by the MaineGeneral laboratory where the Garrison-Foster Health Center sends stool samples.

         Public health detectives are interested whenever a pattern of illness is discovered (see public health historical note below**.)  When 5 cases of parasitic infectious diarrhea are identified in one college, people start asking, "are they putting Giardia in the food at Colby?"

         Rest assured, they aren't.  The cases have been isolated to an indiscretion in one COOT group where the water source was not purified adequately. If students on COOT trips are experiencing any of the above symptoms, please come to the Health Center.  At this point it is more effective to treat patients who were on the particular trip with know exposure than to do the testing and THEN treat them with the anti-parasitic medicine.

         The way one becomes infected is via the "fecal/ oral route," that is, getting poop or poopy food or water in your mouth. (The technical term is "eating food or drinking water that has been contaminated by human or animal waste containing Giardia.) Infection is dose related, i.e. the more poop in your mouth, the better the chance of infectious organism in your system.  The more bugs in your belly, generally, the sicker you get. People most likely to have giardiasis are travelers, campers, children in day care centers and male homosexuals. Hey, sharing body fluids can be risky business (i.e. changing diapers, et cetera.)

         To prevent transmission:

         -wash your hands before eating

         -wash your hands after changing diapers, going to the bathroom, or after touching poopy places

         -follow directions on how to purify your camping water (with boiling, proper filtration or disinfecting tablets)

         -avoid unsanitary water/food sources

 

**Public Health Historical Note John Snow is the father of epidemiology, that Ðology being the study of disease patterns in populations.  During the cholera epidemic in England in the 1850 's, John Snow plotted cholera deaths on a map of London and was able to isolate a particular water pump that seemed to account for the majority of cases.  Even without knowing, at that time, the causative agent for cholera, John Snow knew he had to get people to stop getting their drinking water from that particular pump which brought water from downstream the river Thames.  Public health education did not work and after several warnings to the people of London, John Snow went to the Broad Street pump and broke the handle off the pump, thereby saving London from many senseless deaths.

Now, I'm not saying we should mandate Colby students wash their hands, purify their camping water or keep their hands/mouth out of other people's underwear. 

Am I?

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