SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) - Officials at a Springfield nonprofit agency that helps people with developmental disabilities are waiting for results of tests taken to determine what illness has sickened several at the facility.
Kendra Williams, administrator of community health and epidemiology at the Springfield-Greene County Health Department, said swabs taken from the mouths of two children and two adults at the Developmental Center of the Ozarks have been sent to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.
The Springfield News-Leader reports that 18 children and nine staff members have gotten sick. Williams said the illness is characterized by mouth sores and sometimes a fever and may be hand, foot and mouth disease, a common viral infection.
The child-care facility at the center is closed this week for cleaning.
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Information from: Springfield News-Leader, http://www.news-leader.com