If you lived in Milwaukee in the early 90s, it’s likely you knew someone who drank contaminated water, became sick. maybe even hospitalized, dehydrated and suffered bouts of diarrhea for days, maybe even weeks.
Cryptosporidium is a nasty parasite, if contracted. I know because I’ve had it.
I was four-years-old when Cryptosporidium contaminated the Milwaukee County water supply in April 1993. A detailed analysis by the New England Journal of Medicine estimates some 400,000 individuals in the Milwaukee area contracted Crypto during the outbreak. Of those, more than 4,000 were hospitalized and 54 people died epidemic 18 years ago. Both my parents also had to fight off the debilitating infection and survived.
Cryptosporidium is a gross infection – and in the worst of cases, a deadly parasite for those with weakened immune systems. It does a number on your stomach and takes control of your bowel movements.
(Absolutely everything you’ll ever want to know about Cryptosporidium)
And it’s also a Class B bioterrorist threat, according to the Center for Disease Control, meaning it’s on the Center’s radar as a parasite to protect society against.
There’s never been a bioterrorist release of Crypto on a water supply here in the United States. But that doesn’t mean public health officials don’t consider water supply facilities worth seriously protecting.
A section of the Illinois’ Public Health website is devoted to Emergency Preparedness and Bioterrorism.
“With any type of emergency threat it starts at a local level,” Melanie Arnold, a spokesperson for the Illinois Department of Public Health said. “When funds run out, the state will help in a crisis,” she said.
One of my mother’s friends, Yvonne Demke, works in Milwaukee County as a health specialist. She’s a nurse who works for West Allis, a city that relies on the city’s water supply; the same water supply that Crypto contaminated 18 years ago.
“It was a local pharmacist that reported a large amount of anti-diarrheal being sold (emptying the shelves) to the health department that sparked questions as to what was going on,” Demke said.
To calm any fear of a future Crypto outbreak, Demke noted that by-the-book treatment of municipal water supplies is enough to prevent any biological attack. That’s what the research says.
But water treatment isn’t always the responsibility of a government body.
“When it comes to private well water, the homeowner is responsible for testing theirs,” Arnold said.
The most crucial way to prevent the spread of Cryptosporidium is to effectively monitor a water supply. Any slip up in water treatment practice could prove harmful to a given population.
To help prevent the spread of Cryptosporidium, people should wash their hands on a regular basis. The CDC offers more precaution and prevention tips on its website.
