AUGUSTA, Maine - State health officials say they have been unable to determine the source of E. coli infections that killed one Maine child and sickened another in October.
Officials with the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention say tests failed to find a connection between the infections the children acquired and an animal petting zoo at the Oxford County Fair that both children had visited.
The two had the same strain of the bacteria, making it "highly likely" that they acquired it from the same source, officials say. But an investigation has failed to pinpoint that source, and the Maine CDC has closed its investigation.
"The reality is that the majority of cases we investigate end up with an undetermined cause," says State Epidemiologist Dr. Siiri Bennett, in a press release. "While we know the two children were infected by the same molecular strain of Shiga-toxin producing E. coli, or STEC, that same strain was not found in any of the samples that we tested here in Maine, or in the samples we sent to the U.S. CDC."
State investigators contacted the parents of both children to try to identify the source of the infection, including foods the children might have eaten, but none were found to be the likely cause of the illnesses.
The illness killed 20-month-old Poland toddler Colton Guay, who died at Maine Medical Center in October, and sickened 17-month-old Myles Herschaft, of Auburn. Herschaft recovered.
