Fact sheets
Shiga/Vero Toxin Producing E.coli (STEV/VTEC) fact sheet (PDF 204KB)
Public Health action
Notifiable disease data and reports
Additional sources of information
Exclusion
Exclusions for HUS apply to cases caused by STEC/VTEC only
In general, people with symptoms of enteric infections should be excluded from work, school, activities involving groups of people (e.g. sports training, group camps) and other situations where disease transmission may occur, until they have been asymptomatic for 24 hours and have normal stools.
Additional precautions for people who are at high risk of transmitting their infection or work in a high risk setting (i.e. workers in health care, residential care and child care, food handlers, young children in child care, and cases who are faecally incontinent, as shown in the table below): exclude until asymptomatic for 24 hours and has had two consecutive negative faecal specimens collected at least 24 hours apart.
Enteric precautions for hospitalised and institutionalised patients.
Case definition
Only confirmed cases should be notified.
Confirmed case
A confirmed case requires laboratory definitive evidence only.
Laboratory definitive evidence
1. Isolation of shigatoxigenic/verotoxigenic Escherichia coli from faeces
OR
2. Isolation of shiga toxin or vero toxin from a clinical isolate of E. coli
OR
3. Identification of the gene associated with the production of shiga toxin or vero toxin in E. coli by nucleic acid testing on isolate or raw bloody diarrhoea.
Note: Where STEC/VTEC is isolated in the context of Haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS), it should be notified as STEC/VTEC and HUS.
