Reference no: EM133639130

Assignment:

Please answer the following quiz regarding this case report:

A 9-year-old boy with a two-day history of diarrhea presents to the emergency room with blood in his stools and increased stool volume. He has vomited once. The boy went to a cookout 5 days earlier and ate a hamburger that was still "pink" inside. On examination, he is well, apart from some dehydration. Stool samples contain numerous white blood cells (neutrophils) and bacteria cultured from them are motile Gram-negative bacilli that produce lactose-positive (pink) colonies on MacConkey agar.

Question:

1. What is the name of the pathogen?

2. Name provide the specific information from the minicase to explain which pathogen is causing the disease and why?

3. How did the boy become infected?

In order to determine which pathogen is causing a disease or condition, it is important to focus on 2 pieces of information:

1) The phenotype of the potential pathogen - type of bacterial cells, how it grows on media, etc.

2) The presentation of the patient AND is there information indicating this organism can cause this type of infection/disease - what connection can you find? Other information such as patient history, what the patient was doing or eating, etc is also important but in this course, we are focusing on the two listed above. FYI it is NOT possible to identify a bacterial pathogen by its resistance to antibiotics.