July 16, 2013 — Virginia is coping with its first run-in with a phrase no one in public health or the seafood business ever wants to hear: oyster disease outbreak.
Three people became sick recently after eating raw oysters collected from the same private grounds off Fisherman Island on Virginia's Eastern Shore. They ate the oysters at restaurants in Massachusetts and Maryland, victims of a pathogen that grows naturally in warm waters known as Vibrio parahaemolyticus.
It is the less potent of two Vibrio strains – the tougher kind can kill humans – and typically hits unlucky consumers with vomiting, diarrhea and other stomach ailments. In one of the three reported cases, the person was ill for 10 days, said Keith Skiles, an oyster sanitation specialist with the Virginia Department of Health.
Skiles said Virginia has never experienced "an outbreak" of this kind before, defined by national rules as more than two cases of Vibrio stemming from the same waters.
Read the full story at The Virginian-Pilot