'Explosive diarrhoea' outbreak remains a mystery as officials struggle to find sources

Image source, PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP via Getty Images By Madeline Halpert  and  Kayla Epstein Published 10 minutes ago Tracking the origin of an outbreak in the US that causes explosive diarrhoea has proved a challenge for public health experts searching for answers about how it started - and how it's spreading. Cyclosporiasis, a parasitic infection that spreads through contaminated water or food, often during the summer, has now reached 31 states and infected over 3,000 people, according to state health departments. The main symptom of the rarely fatal illness is frequent, watery diarrhoea. Some experts told the BBC that the parasite is notoriously difficult to trace, a task possibly complicated in part by cuts to federal health agencies. "This isn't like detecting a needle in a haystack. It's like detecting a microscopic portion of a needle in a haystack," said Steven Manderach, executive director of the Association of Food and Drug Officials. One reason the parasite is so hard to track is that it takes one to two weeks for people to fall ill after infection, said Jodie Guest, senior vice chair of epidemiology at Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health. With most food-related illnesses, people tend to experience symptoms within a couple of hours, making it easier to find the food that caused them, Guest said. Testing food for the cyclospora parasite is also far more complex than with other pathogens, said Manderach said , executive director of the Association of Food and Drug Officials. The process requires washing large amounts of the potentially tainted food to remove the cyclospora organisms, reducing the runoff, and then testing it to see if the parasite was present. "You'd have to have truckloads of lettuce to get to that point," said Manderach, who previously dealt with cyclosporiasis outbreaks as a food-safety official in Iowa. What to know about 'explosive diarrhoea' parasite outbreak in US Published 41 minutes ago Given the scale of the US outbreak, public health experts said there were likely multiple points of contamination in the food supply - another factor complicating investigations. Michigan is hardest hit, with over 2,600 cases, followed by New York state. Health officials have advised the public to thoroughly wash produce, avoid certain fruits like raspberries, and cook vegetables to kill off the pathogen - but they still have not identified its sources. States scramble to test and track cyclosporiasis cases Some public health experts said finding the outbreak's origins also are complicated by cuts to agencies and programmes within the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr made a number of budget and staff cuts as a part of billionaire Elon Musk's efforts to cut costs with his Department of Government Efficiency (Doge). The federal government reduced the capacity of its Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet), which tracks several pathogens, including