The Staten Island Advance reports that two-year-old Joshua Salamanca of West Brighton has been hospitalized since October 2nd, where his condition has been found to not be E. coli infection, but a more serious but not contagious condition called hemolytic uremic syndrome.
HUS is a disorder in which red blood cells become damaged or destroyed, causing anemia and the kidney becomes damaged.
HUS is most often caused by E. coli, but because Joshua tested negative for E. coli, he falls into the minority of HUS cases that stem from different causes, like an infection or a complication related to antibiotics.
The boy’s mother had been concerned that her son had contracted HUS via E. coli at his day care center, but investigations showed no E. coli anywhere there.
Some HUS cases are ideopathic, which means they have no identifiable cause.