Salmonella Kottbus outbreak in infants in Gran Canaria (Spain), caused by bottled water, August-November 2006

Abstract

Since October 2006, the Spanish National Reference Laboratory has reported a series of isolations of Salmonella Kottbus on the island of Gran Canaria [1]. The fact that most of the cases were in infants under one year of age and needed hospitalisation, caused significant concern among the general public. Information published in the media contributed to this alarm.Outbreaks due to this Salmonella serotype are rare in the literature with only five outbreaks published since 1959 [2-6]. No cases of Salmonella Kottbus had been isolated and reported in Spain since 1996 [7,8]. We decided to conduct epidemiological and environmental studies to describe the characteristics of the cases and to determine the possible source of infection.