LEWISTON — A 2-year-old girl from Androscoggin County suffered kidney failure in June after a visit to a York Beach zoo and amusement park.
The girl’s father, who asked that the family’s name not be used, said Friday that his daughter was infected by a Shiga toxin-producing strain of E. coli that led to hemolytic uremic syndrome, known as HUS.
The family had visited York Wild Kingdom shortly before the girl developed symptoms consistent with HUS. At the zoo, she petted goats and fed and petted deer, her father said.
There were hand-washing stations at the zoo. “We were proactive with that, but she’s 2 and she was teething,” her father said. “Parents do what they can and kids do what kids do.”
She was admitted to Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston on June 16 before being transferred to Maine Medical Center in Portland where her kidneys started to fail, her father said.
There, she was diagnosed with HUS. She went into complete kidney failure and underwent dialysis after surgery to implant a port for the procedure and a central line for blood flow and medication. She had surgery later to remove the port.
The girl spent two weeks in the hospital and underwent an additional two weeks of outpatient treatment for HUS. She continues to have follow-up treatments, her father said Friday from his daughter’s doctor’s office.
The state lab cultured the girl’s stool sample and the family was interviewed by Maine Center for Disease Control staff. The family was told an investigation would continue.
“We are 99.999 percent positive of the day we got it because of the timeline of how E. coli progresses,” the father said. “They were 100 percent confident she caught it on that Wednesday. Ironically, that Wednesday we went to York Animal Kingdom. We didn’t go anywhere else. She wasn’t exposed to any other animals that day.”
This is the third case of HUS reported this year in Androscoggin County. Earlier in the week, reports were published in the Sun Journal of a 20-month-old Poland boy who died from HUS; a 17-month-old boy from Auburn continues to battle a case of HUS. Those two boys were stricken with the same strain of Shiga-producing E. coli, Maine’s epidemiologist said Friday. The girl’s strain of E. coli was not the same, a state official said Friday.
Also this year, three cases of HUS were reported in York County, state officials said.
The girl’s father said doctors can’t tell exactly how much damage was done to his daughter’s kidneys from the infection. She’ll have to have her kidney function monitored annually for the rest of her life, he said.
Despite the rigors of dealing with his daughter’s infection, her father said his daughter has since gone to the Monmouth Fair and the Litchfield Fair petting zoos.
“She loves animals,” her father said. “E. coli’s everywhere. You can’t let it control your life. But you have to be hyper-vigilant, watching the children’s hands in the mouth and making sure that they wash.”
cwilliams@sunjournal.com
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