Deadly infection outbreak in Wisconsin gaining urgency

Calling it the largest outbreak of its kind and stressing the urgency of finding the source, the CDC has identified two more suspected cases of deadly blood infections and sent additional investigators to Wisconsin.

“This is very much a real outbreak,” said Michael Bell, Deputy Director of the Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Investigators have not been able to find a medical product, single facility, food source or other means of exposure that could explain how dozens of people — mostly elderly residents of central and southeastern Wisconsin — have become ill from a bacterium named Elizabethkingia anophelis.

Isolated tests from the two suspected cases had not yet been confirmed and officials would not say whether the individuals were sickened or had died. As of Tuesday, the outbreak was tied to 44 confirmed cases, including 18 deaths.