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Volume 14, Number 5—May 2008
Research

Risk Factors for Sporadic Shiga Toxin–producing Escherichia coli Infections in Children, Argentina1

Marta Rivas*, Sergio Sosa-Estani†, Josefa Rangel‡, Maria G. Caletti§, Patricia Vallés¶, Carlos D. Roldán§, Laura Balbi¶, Maria C. Marsano de Mollar#, Diego Amoedo§, Elizabeth Miliwebsky*, Isabel Chinen*, Robert M. Hoekstra‡, Paul S. Mead‡, and Patricia M. Griffin‡Comments to Author 
Author affiliations: *Instituto Nacional de Enfermedades Infecciosas, Buenos Aires, Argentina; †Centro Nacional de Endemoepidemias, Buenos Aires, Argentina; ‡Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA; §Hospital Nacional de Pediatría, Buenos Aires, Argentina; ¶Hospital Pediátrico, Mendoza, Argentina; #Ministerio de Desarrollo Social y Salud, Mendoza, Argentina;

Main Article

Table 3

Adjusted univariate analysis of risk and protective factors for Shiga toxin–producing Escherichia coli (STEC) O157 and non-O157 STEC, Buenos Aires and Mendoza, Argentina 2001–2002*

Characteristics STEC O157
 Non-O157 STEC
% Case-patients†
(n = 58) % Controls† (n = 116) mOR p value % Case-patients†
(n = 38) % Controls†
(n = 75) mOR p value
Risk factors
Dietary habits
Eating at a social gathering 19 8 9.79 <0.01 21 7 2.82 NS
Drinking from a baby bottle left at room
temperature for >2 h 75 76 1.32 NS 66 53 3.78 <0.05
Drinking formula (milk)‡ 3 3 1.91 NS 11 1 12.70 <0.05
Meat-related dietary habits§
Eating breaded beef (milanesa) at 
restaurant 5 0 15.00¶ <0.05 3 1 2.02 NS
Eating a piece of beef outside home§ 12 5 4.68 <0.05 13 1 7.56 <0.10
Eating undercooked beef at any place 29 10 3.69 <0.05 29 17 1.96 NS
Teething on undercooked beef at home 16 3 4.15 <0.10 8 1 12.78 <0.10
Consuming jugo de carne 16 4 3.24 <0.10 8 7 2.22 NS
Eating undercooked piece of beef 22 8 3.29 <0.10 16 11 1.25 NS
Eating salami at home 24 10 3.73 <0.05 11 8 1.28 NS
Eating ham‡ 40 25 2.52 <0.10 16 25 0.36 NS
Eating beef soup‡ 36 48 0.44 <0.10 45 40 1.31 NS
Exposure to animals or their environment
Living in or visiting a place with farm animals 18 5 11.83 <0.01 13 5 2.76 NS
Contact with farm animals at any place 14 5 6.08 <0.05 13 7 3.39 NS
Contact with horses 12 5 4.51 <0.05 13 4 6.78 NS
Person-to-person transmission
Contact with a child <5 y withdiarrhea 20 5 6.29 NS 26 4 6.93 <0.05
Other variables
Wearing diapers 82 70 2.83 <0.10 82 65 9.34 <0.10
Nonparental household income 58 42 2.06 <0.10 45 47 1.02 NS
Living in overcrowded condition‡
 22
 15
 1.77
 NS
31
 1
 3.06
 <0.10
Protective factors
Eating meat pie at home 17 23 0.77 NS 5 19 0.19 <0.10
Eating empanadas at home 16 37 0.17 <0.01 18 33 0.37 NS
Eating ground beef at home‡ 69 82 0.21 <0.05 60 73 0.29 NS
Eating breaded beef (milanesa) at home 49 67 0.39 <0.05 45 56 0.77 NS
Buying beef <1 time/wk‡ 76 93 0.24 <0.05 87 89 0.43 NS

*mOR, matched odds ratio; NS, not significant (p>0.10).
†For STEC O157, the denominator (number of respondents) for case-patients varied from 56 to 58, except for contact with a child <5 y with diarrhea, in which the number was 51. The denominator for their controls varied from 112 to 116, except for this same factor, in which the number was 104. For non-O157 STEC, the denominator (number of respondents) varied from 37 to 38, except for contact with a child <5 y with diarrhea, in which the number was 31. The denominator for their controls varied from 73 to 75, except for this same factor, in which the number was 67.
‡All significant associations except these were also significant associations in the total dataset with 150 cases.
§The term “meat” includes ground beef.
¶Liquid squeezed from a tender, usually lightly cooked piece of beef, and spoon-fed.

Main Article

1Part of the information in this article was presented at the 5th International Symposium and Workshop on Shiga Toxin (verocytotoxin)–Producing Escherichia coli Infections, June 2003, Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom, Abstract 0-5, p.19.

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