{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,11,26]],"date-time":"2025-11-26T22:08:26Z","timestamp":1764194906053,"version":"build-2065373602"},"reference-count":32,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"4","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,3,29]],"date-time":"2025-03-29T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1743206400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Microorganisms"],"abstract":"<jats:p>In September 2024, the Egyptian Health Ministry declared an Escherichia coli (E. coli) outbreak in the southern province of Aswan. The spread of an ambiguous illness erupted in the village of Abu Al-Rish Bahri, 20 kilometers north of Aswan, with hundreds of citizens arriving at the governorate\u2019s local hospitals suffering from severe gastrointestinal infections. The authorities, however, did not trace the outbreak\u2019s most common source nor determine whether it was food- or water-borne. The official explanations for the frequent cases and the reported fatalities were inconclusive. There was an evident lack of comprehensive documentation on the extent of the infection, the exposed population, the prevalence pattern of the pathogen, or the retrieved E. coli isolates. In addition, the Egyptian government denied any possible association between the contamination of drinking water and the recent Aswan crisis. Challenging the official narrative, this article proposes a scientific report based on featuring the status of E. coli infection in Egypt, highlighting the gaps in the announced outbreak claims and adapting water pollution as an alarming hypothesis for the peculiar Aswan disease.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/microorganisms13040785","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,3,31]],"date-time":"2025-03-31T05:21:04Z","timestamp":1743398464000},"page":"785","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["A Mysterious Health Crisis in Aswan Governorate, Southern Egypt, September 2024: A Case Report"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"13","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-5645-1543","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Marwa","family":"Omar","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Medical Parasitology, Faculty of Medicine, Zagazig University, Zagazig 44519, Egypt"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Heba","family":"Abdelal","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"LIS Cross-National Data Center, Maison des Sciences Humaines, L-4366 Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,3,29]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","first-page":"578","article-title":"Site suitability evaluation for sustainable distribution of hospital using spatial information technologies and AHP: A Case study of Upper Egypt, Aswan City","volume":"8","author":"Ahmed","year":"2016","journal-title":"J. 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