Doyle made this decision after state officials consulted with both the Department of Health and Family Services State Epidemiologist Jeff Davis M. D. and the CDC Outbreak Response and Surveillance Team Chief Christopher Braden, M. D Because of the severity of the outbreak in Wisconsin, the CDC requested that Wisconsin become the first state to take this action.
The CDC will manage the national E. coli O157 outbreak investigation from Atlanta and will work closely with Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services staff and public health partners on their investigations to fully understand this occurrence and to prevent and control the outbreak.
Because of this request, the CDC will allocate additional resources to Wisconsin. Specifically, CDC staff will work with Wisconsin to assess the causes as well as the magnitude of the outbreak.
Wisconsin played a key role in identifying this as a nationwide epidemic. Wisconsin was the first state to identify the strand of E. coli that has affected people and made that genetic information available to other states. When officials in 8 other states matched that genetic marker with the Wisconsin strain, it was determined this was a nationwide epidemic with a single source. That is what led to the nationwide advisory about spinach.
Wisconsin has 30 of the 94 confirmed cases of E. coli nationwide - the most of any state.
