Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Some lo­cal doc­tors and busi­ness sup­pli­ers are mon­i­tor­ing the US out­break of the in­testi­nal in­fec­tion cy­clospo­ri­a­sis, which, up to Tues­day, had caused 1,645 con­firmed cas­es across 34 US states, with an­oth­er 5,100 cas­es un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Cy­clospo­ri­a­sis is caused by the par­a­site Cy­clospo­ra cayeta­nen­sis. The US Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion (CDC) con­firmed the cas­es and on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion, not­ing that the ac­tu­al num­ber of in­fec­tions is like­ly high­er than re­port­ed.

Michi­gan has been the hard­est-hit state, while mul­ti­ple states have record­ed in­creas­es in cas­es com­pared with last year.

The in­fec­tion is spread when peo­ple drink con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed wa­ter or eat raw food, usu­al­ly fresh pro­duce, car­ry­ing the par­a­site.

Pro­duce most of­ten be­comes con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed through wa­ter sup­plies taint­ed with hu­man fae­ces. The dis­ease is not trans­mit­ted through per­son-to-per­son con­tact.

Me­dia re­ports said the source of the US out­break is still be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed.

Pre­vi­ous out­breaks have been linked to im­port­ed fresh pro­duce, in­clud­ing bagged sal­ads, leafy greens, fresh basil, cilantro and rasp­ber­ries.

The CDC said cy­clospo­ri­a­sis is not usu­al­ly life-threat­en­ing and can be treat­ed with an­tibi­otics. How­ev­er, some pa­tients can be­come se­ri­ous­ly ill and re­quire hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tion.

Symp­toms in­clude pro­longed bouts of wa­tery di­ar­rhoea, fa­tigue and loss of ap­petite.

Oth­er symp­toms in­clude nau­sea, vom­it­ing, ab­dom­i­nal cramp­ing, bloat­ing and weight loss.

With­out treat­ment, the ill­ness can last from a few days to more than a month, as symp­toms of­ten im­prove for days or even weeks be­fore re­turn­ing.

The out­break has oc­curred dur­ing the busy sum­mer trav­el pe­ri­od, when many Trinidad and To­ba­go cit­i­zens vis­it the Unit­ed States.

Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe and Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Health Rishi Seecher­an did not re­spond to Guardian queries on whether any cas­es of cy­clospo­ri­a­sis have been re­port­ed in Trinidad and To­ba­go, whether any pub­lic health ad­vi­so­ry would be is­sued, par­tic­u­lar­ly for peo­ple trav­el­ling to the US, and whether any alerts had been is­sued to the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor.

Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Ravi Rati­ram al­so did not re­spond to queries.

Sev­er­al lo­cal health prac­ti­tion­ers, while not­ing the out­break in the US, said they were close­ly mon­i­tor­ing re­ports of the dis­ease.

Some shop­pers are al­so pay­ing clos­er at­ten­tion to veg­eta­bles and fruit im­port­ed from the Unit­ed States.

The CDC rec­om­mends wash­ing hands and fresh pro­duce thor­ough­ly be­fore eat­ing, cut­ting or cook­ing. It al­so ad­vis­es scrub­bing fruits and veg­eta­bles with a brush where ap­pro­pri­ate. Cook­ing kills the par­a­site, and heat­ing food to 176°F (80°C) or high­er is ef­fec­tive.

A San Fer­nan­do doc­tor said, “Tri­nis are tough. If peo­ple here get it, they may think this is just the usu­al ‘24-hour bug’ af­ter eat­ing cer­tain things. But this dis­ease seems to in­volve re­laps­es and a long re­cov­ery time if you don’t treat it. It isn’t what you’d nor­mal­ly get, where you have a stom­ach bug, run to the toi­let all day, drink hot Coke and you’re back to work the next day, good, good.”