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Fusarium and Acanthamoeba keratitis: can a single centre detect outbreaks?

¹ University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA
² Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA
³ Department of Ophthalmology, University of California, San Francisco, 8 Koret Way, San Francisco, CA, USA
⁴ Institute for Global Health, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA

Correspondence to:
N R Acharya, 513 Parnassus Ave, Room S334, San Francisco, CA 94143-0412, USA; nisha.acharya@ucsf.edu

Accepted 16 December 2007

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recently reported nationwide epidemics of Fusarium and Acanthamoeba keratitis.^{1 2} These investigations were prompted by reports of increased cases at individual sites.^3–5 It can be difficult to detect outbreaks at a single centre due to changing diagnostic criteria, changing referral patterns, and the effects of chance. The objective of the current study was to determine if the recent outbreaks of Fusarium or Acanthamoeba keratitis could be identified from data obtained from a single centre, the F I Proctor Foundation at the University of California, San Francisco. Using the Maximum Excess Events Test (MEET), which detects clustering within years and between years, we confirmed epidemics consistent with the recently reported epidemics of Fusarium and Acanthamoeba keratitis. Our study shows that it is possible for a single centre to detect an outbreak.

We conducted a retrospective analysis of the culture results from clinically diagnosed non-herpetic corneal ulcers . . . [Full text of this article]