Protracted infection with Salmonella bareilly in a maternity hospital

The paper describes a protracted outbreak of Salmonella bareilly in a maternity hospital in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The disease affected the premature babies who suffered from gastroenterities. The infection started in one premature baby room and soon spread to all other premature baby rooms in the hospital. Though the disease affected only the premature babies, there was widespread contamination of the environment and a large reservoir of asymptomatic infections amongst the staff and healthy babies. Initially the spread of infection would have been by person-to-person transfer, but subsequently the rapid spread was probably through the piped water supply contaminated as a result of suction of waste water into the water mains. The organism appeared to grow in the interior of the water tap in that zone which is in contact with the atmosphere and also in the walls of the water tanks at the water level. When the plumbing defect which permitted the contamination was rectified, the organism disappeared from the taps and the infection rapidly subsided. Subsequently all the tanks were cleaned and disinfected. There was no recurrence of infection after this.