"A Mysterious Disease Is Killing People in Wisconsin"

"Since November, 54 people in Wisconsin have one by one fallen ill with an obscure kind of bacteria called Elizabethkingia. Fifteen have died from the infection.

Elizabethkingia is common in the environment—in soil, in water—but it rarely gets people sick. Cases pop up in ones and twos, usually in people with weak immune systems, says Michael Bell, deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s healthcare quality division. “The fact that we’re seeing more than four dozen cases, that is a very large outbreak.” In fact, an outbreak of this size for Elizabethkingia, named for the bacteriologist who first isolated it in the 1950s, is unprecedented. The bacteria infects the blood, causing fever, chills, and shortness of breath.

What’s going on? It’s a mystery for the CDC’s disease detectives, a corps of about 70 doctors and epidemiologists who specialize in tracing outbreaks, from foodborne illnesses to Ebola. Wisconsin’s public health department contacted the CDC for help in February, and the federal agency now have team of seven people on the ground in Wisconsin."
    
Sarah Zhang reports for Wired March 16, 2016.