Muytjens et al. (1983) reported Cronobacter cases in eight infants in The Netherlands, five of which were from the same hospital, and the remaining three were from three different hospitals. The infants were all suffering from neonatal meningitis, six of which resulted in fatalities. This was possibly the first reported Cronobacter outbreak case, which was associated with contamination of infant formula, though a direct implication was not concluded. The investigation had resulted in the isolation of the organism from the hospital environment, such as powdered formula tin, dishwashing brush, and a stirring spoon, even though plasmid profiling had disregarded these strains to be considered causative agents.
Twelve infants in an NICU in Belgium were reported to be victims of a Cronobacter NEC outbreak by Van Acker et al. (2001). All the affected were found to be pre-term, low birth weight, formula fed infants, of which two eventually died because of the NEC. The strains from the outbreak were analysed by arbitrarily primed polymerase chain reaction (AP-PCR) to reveal three different…show more content… (2002) reported the isolation of the organism from five infants in a hospital in Jerusalem. Three of the children were seriously infected. They showed symptoms of both, bacteraemia and meningitis, while the others were colonizations. These strains were unique in that they were all found to be negative for nitrite reduction. Another interesting fact in this outbreak was about a Cronobacter strain that had been isolated from a blender in the hospital in which the formula had been processed. This strain was the same pulsetype as that coming from the infants, when tested via pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE). Also, the organism was found to be extremely persistent in the blender, having been isolated for upto 5 months despite repeated decontaminations. This suggested the establishment of an environmental niche by Cronobacter spp. in the environment of the