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The Salt Lake County Health Department is ruling out cholera in the cases of two older county residents who came down with severe diarrhea.
Test results were returned from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday afternoon. The tests indicate the two have vibriosis, a related disease that has symptoms similar to cholera but is less infectious, according to a department news release.
The department sent samples to the CDC earlier this week after medical providers reported they suspected cholera. The disease is one of dozens of illnesses that providers must report to health departments in Utah.
Both cholera and vibriosis are caused by the bacterium vibrio cholerae.
"Some strains of v. cholerae cause cholera disease and are to blame for the cholera outbreaks known throughout history and in present-day developing nations," health department managers said in a statement. "Lab tests have determined that the two symptomatic patients in Salt Lake County do not have these outbreak-related strains of the bacteria. Instead, they have a strain that causes vibriosis."
Vibriosis results in watery, sometimes bloody, diarrhea and abdominal cramps, often accompanied by nausea, vomiting, fever, chills and headache.
Doctors typically treat it by hydrating the patient, though the symptoms usually resolve without treatment within two to three days. Vibriosis leads to 185 hospitalizations and 57 deaths in the United States each year, the health department said.
Strains of the bacteria that cause vibriosis are often found in coastal marine areas, and their numbers increase dramatically during the warm summer months.
"Consuming raw, undercooked, or cross-contaminated seafood, especially shellfish, is the most common cause of vibriosis, but exposure to contaminated water can also cause infection," the department noted.
Health department staff members are interviewing those infected to learn, if possible, the source of the illness.
Citing state and federal patient privacy laws, spokesman Nicholas Rupp declined to provide any details about the patients — including their genders or whether they recently traveled to a foreign country. He did say both are 65 years old or older.
"They are being treated and it's not life-threatening," Rupp said.
Current laws allow the health department to provide more detail in cases where the public may be at risk of infection, he said.
In this case, however, "We don't think there's a risk to the public," Rupp said.
Salt Lake County last confirmed cases of vibriosis in 2014, 2011 and 2009.
Twitter: @KristenMoulton