The gastrointestinal illness that has afflicted more than 90 people who went to Burrillville's Spring Lake on July 4 has been identified as the Shagilla bacteria, a human pathogen that probably was spread in the water by the feces of one of the swimmers, Rhode Island Department of Health officials announced late Tuesday afternoon.
Because water tests have been negative for the bacteria over the past few days, the state is allowing the town-owned facility to reopen on Wednesday, Director Michael Fine announced.
Fine said the number of people who have fallen ill has risen to 92, with 16 needing to be hospitalized with symptoms including severe and bloody diarrhea. About 80 percent were under 18 with the youngest being 11 months. Only four remain in the hospital.
Fine cautioned people who were at the lake and have become ill, or caregivers of people with gastrointestinal symptoms, to seek medical attention and not to go out in public until their doctors say they are no longer contagious.
Fine and other health officials said the source of the pathogen could easily have been from one individual, such as an infant not wearing a diaper and a bathing suit. All children who are not toilet-trained should wear both, they said.
Fine said health officials could not recall an outbreak of Shagilla that severe in decades, and have only heard anecdotally of an episode in Lincoln nearly 30 years ago. Shagilla is less of an issue in pools because chlorine kills the bacteria, said state epidemiologist Utpala Bandy. Bandy said it was fortunate that of the four strains of Shagilla, the one that has turned up at Spring Lake was the least serious.