>> Public health officials across the country are working to identify the cause of an outbreak of cyclists for ISS.

The parasitic infection is hitting more than half the states in the U.S., including Illinois, harder than in previous years.

The Illinois Department of Public Health says that as of today, they've identified over 200 probable cases of cyclist crisis in the state.

Joining us now with more on the outbreak and what you can do is Doctor Emily, Landon, executive medical director for infection prevention and control at Uchicago Medicine, but land.

And welcome back to the I'd like to start off fairly simply just asking what exactly is cyclists prices?

>> Well, a cyclist or high of 2 says is actually Parasite packages microscopic and it thrives in warm, wet weather, which is exactly what we've been seeing in all over the Midwest recently.

And it often contaminates foods especially produce that's grown in the ground where I can come from animal feces or contamination from other water sources and then those foods when people ingest them, they can develop diarrhea.

That's pretty significant.

>> Yeah, I want to ask what are the main symptoms and how severe can those symptoms >> So I think a lot of people have been hearing a lot of things on social media, about explosive diarrhea and that's not There is a lot of watery diarrhea involved in cyclists for ISIS and patients can unfortunately continue to have the symptoms sort of off and on college remitting and relaxing so they come and go for upwards of almost 2 months without treatment.

Now, if there aren't a lot of other major problems there, some cramping, bloating?

Just abdominal discomfort.

Sometimes people are a little nauseated.

But most patients just have those symptoms which are bad and disruptive to your life.

But they're usually not life threatening.

Some people do get such bad diarrhea, specially few medical problems are very young or very old.

That might.

Landed in the hospital, getting fluids for dehydration.

But the vast majority of people recover from this infection on their own.

>> You mentioned the potential sources of this parasite.

How can people avoid contracting this infection?

>> Yeah, one, a tricky situation.

So there are cases of cycles prices every summer all over the country you can get it when you're traveling abroad in places where the weather is warm and wet as produce.

And it's also there seems to be a much bigger than usual number of cases this year.

Now the CDC is reporting and some state health departments are reporting an outbreak.

That's probably all the cases are related that is taking place in Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia and Kentucky.

That's what they decided today.

But there are excess cases in a lot of states in total.

I think they're up more than 30 states report cases more than 5,000 cases under investigation by the CDC and Illinois has a much higher case count.

I think 216 as of today, much higher than you would usually see it this year.

But we really don't know exactly what's causing Usually at by this time, we would know that it's set contamination of produce like some maybe let in a bag or some berries.

You know, that's what usually happens with these foodborne outbreak outbreaks.

But this one has been particularly difficult to pin down and it's been hard to know exactly what to avoid.

So the question about how to prevent it is a little trickier.

It's a time of year when fresh produce is at its tastiest at its freshest.

And so I really am low tell people not to eat any fruits and vegetables.

That would be a bad idea.

So I think think there are some things that people can do to reduce the rest.

So the leafy greens becoming bags or containers where they're just leaves or already been chalked.

That's riskier.

That whole had a So if you want to make a salad, I would recommend final full head lettuce and be able to peel off those outer leaves and throw them away and then washing the rest of the leaves.

That's going to help reduce your risk when it comes to berries, which are my favorite thing to eat at this time of year.

There's not a lot that can be done.

I would just recommend washing them as best you can.

Those things that are on the market sort of spray on vegetables and fruits in order to clean those are not going to be effective at killing cyclist crisis.

So if you've got to eat, those raspberries are taking a little bit of a rest.

But so far, we don't know if the Rather's of the cars are not.

So I think you have to make your own judgment in short if you're eating fruits and vegetables, you can cook that will really help reduce the risk.

Cooking 258 degrees Fahrenheit will kill the parasite.

And then the other option is to wash them really well.

water doesn't always zone and some things are really hard to clean, come or can be scrubbed when you're cleaning it, that's going to be really good.

good intervention to do.

But a thing that can be peeled, that's a great choice, too.

But I think some things are a little geeter and I put very these the leaves greeley's like what you find and what is or honestly in the past there, the nation's a salon.

Basil, which is also one of my favorite things at this time of year.

So I'm really unhappy with recommendations, understandably so.

>> You know, last summer, the CDC quietly scaled back a federal state partnership that monitors foodborne illnesses and no longer requires monitoring for several pathogens, including cyclists, poor is the federal government falling asleep at the wheel here?

>> Now, that's a loaded question.

I happen to think that scaling back protections that we have been in food safety and a number of the other public health interventions that we've been doing for years is a problem.

And honestly, I think that's probably contributing to why we do have a source for this outbreak.

But there are other things about cycles that.

Make it trickier and more difficult to track than other This is like these you've heard of and in the past equal and 1, 5, 7, h 7 things like that.

They're easier to grow.

People get faster.

The incubation time for cyclists prices could be up to 2 weeks.

And so it's really hard somebody doesn't really complicated, takes it a week or so for you realize that this is not going away and come to attention and go to your doctor and get asked, then you are asking you look back and tell us what you ate 3 weeks ago.

It can be really hard to remember what you ate yesterday.

So it could be pretty tricky to track down the cause of these outbreaks.

>> You mentioned some of the numbers here.

As you said, 216 probable cases at last count in Illinois.

47 of those reported in Chicago.

Are you concerned this outbreak could become significantly larger?

>> Only probably already is significantly larger cycles prices because the symptoms having their relatively mild.

They're not going to put you in the hospital for most people.

A lot of people don't ever get tested or don't come to attention back.

Some people may be going to their doctor with symptoms of diarrhea and the doctor just as a lead.

It's the cyclists for will give you some back from now and see how you do without ever getting a test.

And so a lot of pieces are never get reported.

There are probably lots and lots more cases than what we're seeing actually hitting the numbers in the health department.

So probably a lot more people are sick than we think.

And I think it is already a pretty big outbreak now, granted, even the 5,000 additional I think CDC teens TJ 151600 cases confirmed and another 5,000.

They're looking into even those numbers seem like a lot.

But for the whole country, that's not a ton of people that they're probably a lot more case.

They're not coming to people's attention.

And so I think if you're having symptoms like watery diarrhea, cramping, bloating, abdominal pain, it's reasonable to go to your doctor.

Do have treatments for this.

If you can take silver drugs.

That we can probably reduce your suffering quite a bit.

>> Certainly a noble goal in an instance like this.

All right, Doctor, Emily, Landon,