By Associated Press
Huntsville, AL – An E-Coli outbreak has sickened 14 to 15 people in north Alabama and health officials are focusing on a Huntsville restaurant where most of them ate.
According to Debra Williams, the assistant director of the Huntsville-Madison County Health Department, the victims are ages 5 to 48 and started coming in over the Fourth of July holiday.
She said a 5-year-old boy from Meridianville was among those infected. He was transferred to Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville and may have to undergo dialysis.
Williams said most of the patients sickened by the bacteria ate at Little Rosie's Taqueria in Huntsville, but the precise source of the bacteria hasn't been pinned down.
She said the restaurant had ``some temperature and generalized problems'' at its June 29 inspection, but at least three of the victims have never eaten there.
Medical personnel say the very young, seniors and people with weak immune systems are the most susceptible to the E-Coli bacteria.
Health officials say this is the first E-Coli oubreak in Alabama in more than 20 years.
(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)