Washington County Fair E. coli Outbreak

During September, 1999, hunrdreds of people who attended the Washington County Fair in Albany, New York, became ill with symptoms of E. coli O157:H7 infection. The New York State Department of Health reported a total of 781 suspected and reported cases of E. coli infection linked to the fair. State health officials used PFGE testing to determine that the strain of bacteria that had made fair visitors ill was the same strain found in the fairgrounds' water supply, which was had been contaminated from animal feces. Overall, 127 cases were culture-confirmed through lab testing, 65 people were hospitalized, eleven children developed Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome, and a child and elderly man (ages three and 79) died.

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