Emer Smith, senior program associate and an infectious disease field epidemiologist at the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), supported by MCD Global Health, presented at the June 2025 Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) Annual Conference in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Along with other epidemiologists across several sessions, she presented Campylobacter coli Outbreak from Raw Oyster Consumption, Maine 2024, an outbreak in Maine where six people were sickened with campylobacteriosis after eating raw oysters sourced from a single oyster harvester.

Campylobacter are bacteria that can make people ill with diarrhea, and the illness is called campylobacteriosis. Campylobacter cause the most bacterial diarrheal illnesses in the U.S., and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 1.5 million people in the U.S. get ill from Campylobacter every year. People most commonly get the infection by eating raw or undercooked poultry.

The specific outbreak in Maine was only the second known outbreak of this type of infection attributed to raw oyster consumption in the U.S.

The outbreak investigation was done by the Maine CDC in collaboration with the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) and revealed that the most likely source of Campylobacter was from bird feces contaminating oysters grown in and harvested from floating surface bags. The Maine DMR issued a product recall and created a remediation plan for the harvester; no additional cases were found.

Emer represented the hard work of the Maine CDC and MCD at the conference and was “grateful for the opportunity to learn, network, and share information” to help the Maine CDC Infectious Disease Epidemiology program.

The CSTE Annual Conference provides opportunities for public health epidemiologists and professionals to enhance their expertise, access training, and engage in meaningful discussions that impact their daily work. This year’s conference brought together more than 2,000 attendees.