Medical professional shares tips to prevent parasite causing ‘explosive diarrhea’
OCEAN SPRINGS, Miss. (WXXV) — Cyclospora is continuing to impact states across the U.S., including Mississippi.
The state currently has five confirmed cases, and though the Mississippi State Department of Health says those cases are not linked to the multi-state outbreak currently under investigation by the CDC, health officials are still advising residents to take precautions.
“Cyclospora is a parasite. It is something typically related to contaminated ground water or contaminated produce. It’s fairly easily killed with cooking,” said Nathan Payne, a nurse practitioner at Alpha Care Urgent Care in Ocean Springs. “When it gets into your body and populates it can cause infection, which causes sometimes 20-30 bouts of watery diarrhea a day. It can cause bloating, excess flatulence, some mild abdominal pain, and a low-grade fever sometimes accompanies it.”
Symptoms don’t appear until days after consuming contaminated food, and they typically last between 10 days to two weeks.
As for prevention, it’s always a good idea to thoroughly wash fresh vegetables before eating them, and when possible, cooking produce to appropriate temperatures can also help reduce the risk of contamination.
“It’s been linked to bagged lettuce, which are just chopped up pieces of lettuce, because they are hard to wash and decontaminate. So how do we avoid this? One way is if you’re gonna use lettuce, let’s buy the whole heads of lettuce, then lets strip off the outer layers of this and wash the rest of it,” said Payne. “Eating raw vegetables at this point is probably not a good idea. We should probably wash them to remove pesticides anyway, or wax preservatives. For vegetables, if we cook them to 158 to 160 degrees, which is thoroughly cooked, it’s gonna kill this.”
If you experience symptoms such as frequent watery diarrhea, loss of appetite, nausea, or fatigue, health officials recommend seeing your healthcare provider. Cyclospora can be treated with prescription antibiotics, and early treatment can help shorten the illness.
