Question

You are the director of the County Public Health Laboratory that conducts investigations into outbreaks of infectious diseases in your county. Recently, you have obtained several urine specimens from male and female cross-country racers who have become very ill. The attending physicians suspect Leptospirosis as the cause of the illnesses.

What procedures and precautions would you use in conducting the confirmatory cultures of the originally submitted samples? 7 pts

What procedures and precautions would you recommend for those conducting field investigations to determine the source of the racers’ exposures? Hint, the field investigations will likely include several samples of water from various areas where the racers crossed running streams and standing pools of water. 7 pts

After confirmation of the sources of the Leptospires, what would you suggest as the possible sources of the contamination of the water? 6 points

Answer 1

What procedures and precautions would you use in conducting the confirmatory cultures of the originally submitted samples?

• Urine specimen should be kept in a sterile place and avoid contamination during transportation.
• The specimen should be processed as soon as possible.
• The specimen should be labeled properly to avoid misdiagnosis.
• The specimen should not be kept open to avoid the transmission of organisms.
• Follow aseptic technique in the handling of the specimen.
• Each specimen should be cultured separately to avoid cross-contamination.
• USe simple techniques of culture medium.
• Discard the remaining sediments properly.

What procedures and precautions would you recommend for those conducting field investigations to determine the source of the racers’ exposures? Hint, the field investigations will likely include several samples of water from various areas where the racers crossed running streams and standing pools of water.

• Before collecting the source of the sample, the sampling point should be chosen properly.
• Sampling point should be at different sources such as water source, storage, transplant, collecting point etc.
• Samples collected from the sampling point of more contaminated and unfavorable sources to get the exact results.
• While selecting the sampling point the proportion of the number of population and the process of the supply system should be taken into account.
• Samples from the pipeline, reservoirs should be included where the inhabitants have grown.
• One sample should be included from the clean water after the treatment process.
• Before testing the samples, it should be checked for quality control such as turbidity, PH, level of chlorine residual.
• The samples should not exceed more than 6 hours for analyzing after collection.
• The transportation of the sample should not exceed more than 2 hours.
• The samples are labeled properly.
• Chlorine residual should be inactivated or neutralized.
• By microbiological analysis, the organism should be identified.

After confirmation of the sources of the Leptospires, what would you suggest as the possible sources of the contamination of the water?

• Leptospira cause leptospirosis in humans through the contaminated water, soil, and plants.
• The infected animal and the inhabitant are the cause for the presence of leptospirae in water.
• The contaminated urine of animals becomes direct contact with the water source and makes contaminated.
• The water source is contaminated when in contact with contaminated urine and soil.
• Leptospirae can survive in water.
• People drink the contaminated water and prone to get this leptospirae infection.
• The people who work as a farmer, veterinarians, field workers are more exposed to obtain this infection.
• Intake of raw standing water, lack of treatment plans are the cause of disease outbreak of leptospirae.