No New E. Coli At Downtown Ymca

No new cases of E. coli have been found at the downtown YMCA daycare center, where an outbreak sickened eight children last month.

Six of the children attended the center, and two were relatives.

Only one child was hospitalized. The 23-month-old girl remained in fair condition Friday at Deaconess Medical Center.

The state lab has received 82 samples from Spokane for E. coli bacteria. Of those, 69 were negative and one was a repeat positive of one of the eight cases. The other 12 samples still don’t have results.

The Spokane Regional Health District stopped just short of saying the outbreak was over.

But “it has an over kind of feeling, doesn’t it?” said Dr. Paul Stepak, district epidemiologist.

The district will continue to try to find a cause for the outbreak. It’s most likely not food-related. The bacteria was probably passed from toddler to toddler, Stepak said. , DataTimes