Stomach Bug Outbreak Linked to Salad Mix

Health officials are eyeing salad mix in a multi-state outbreak of cyclospora, a stomach-sickening parasite contracted through contaminated food.

The Nebraska Department of Health announced today that a prepackaged salad mix was the source of the stomach bug that has sickened 78 Nebraskans since mid-June. The Iowa Department of Health said the same, blaming a mixture of iceberg and romaine lettuce, carrots and red cabbage for the diarrhea-causing parasite contracted by at least 143 Iowans.

Read about how produce is a common culprit in food-borne illness.

At least 80 percent Iowa’s cyclospora patients had eaten the prepackaged salad mix, according to an investigation by the state’s health department. But officials have yet to name the salad’s manufacturer, emphasizing that it’s no longer on store shelves.

“Iowans should continue eating salads, as the implicated prepackaged mix is no longer in the state’s food supply chain,” Steven Mandernach, chief of the Food and Consumer Safety Bureau of the Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals,?said in a statement.

More than 370 people have contracted the stomach bug in 15 states, according to the U.S. Food and Drug?Administration. The source of the infection in states other than Nebraska and Iowa, which include?Texas,?Wisconsin, Arkansas,?Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York and Ohio, remains unclear.

“FDA will continue to work with its federal, state and local partners in the investigation to determine whether this conclusion applies to the increased number of cases of cyclosporiasis in other states,” the FDA said in a statement.?”Should a specific food item be identified, the FDA, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, state and local partners will work to track it to its source, determine why the outbreak occurred, and if contamination is still a risk,?implement preventive action, which will help to keep an outbreak like this from happening again.”

The infection, which beyond diarrhea can cause fatigue, weight loss, stomach cramps, vomiting, muscle aches and low-grade fever, can be cleared with antibiotics. But without treatment, the symptoms can linger for months.

People who are “in poor health or who have weakened immune systems” are more likely to have a severe or prolonged illness, according to the CDC.

View the original article here

TB Outbreak in Va. High School

Officials at the Fairfax County Health Department in Virginia are investigating a tuberculosis outbreak at a Virginia high school that has infected three people.

The health department officials said 430 faculty members and students might have been exposed and need to be tested for the disease.

The health department originally opened and completed an investigation at the school in December, when one person was diagnosed. But the case was reopened after two additional people at the same school – Robert E. Lee High School in Springfield – were found to have contracted tuberculosis.

The health department investigation has not concluded that the cases are related and did not specify whether the infected where students or staff, who ended the school year Tuesday.

Tuberculosis is caused by bacteria that usually attacks the lungs and is potentially fatal. The disease is spread when an infected person expels the bacteria into the air and it enters the lungs of another person.? The bacteria can linger in the air for hours after being expelled, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Symptoms of tuberculosis include fever, chills and coughing up of blood.

Tuberculosis is usually treated with six months of antibiotics, but new strains of the disease have become resistant to medication, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

The WHO estimates that 5 percent of tuberculosis cases are multidrug resistant tuberculosis (MDR TB) or virulent strains that do not respond to the primary antibiotics given to treat the disease. There were 98 cases of MDR TB in the United States in 2011, the year for which the most recent data is available.

There were 10, 528 diagnosed cases of tuberculosis in the U.S. in 2011.

Officials at the Fairfax County Health Department did not specify whether the tuberculosis strains were MDR TB.

About 1.34 million people die worldwide every year from tuberculosis, according to the WHO.

View the original article here

Deadly Outbreak May Be Linked to Cheese

 

A deadly listeria outbreak, which may be linked to specialty cheeses, has sickened four people and killed one, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The outbreak of the potentially deadly bacterial infection has been linked to cheeses produced by Crave Brothers Farmstead Cheese in Wisconsin. According to the FDA, the Minnesota Department of Agriculture is testing samples of the cheese and early results indicate that there is listeria bacteria present in the samples. Confirmation of these results is pending.

The company has voluntarily recalled certain cheeses that were made on or prior to July 1, 2013, including their les freres cheese, the petit frere cheese and the petit frere cheese with truffles.

"We are cooperating with the regulatory agencies' ongoing investigation of the cause of the potential health risks," George Crave, president of the company, said in a statement posted on the company's website.

Calls to Crave Brothers were not immediately returned. The FDA and the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture are investigating the company's processing facilities.

According to the FDA, five people between the ages of 31 and 67 have been hospitalized and one person has died as a result of the outbreak. One pregnant woman is believed to have suffered a miscarriage as a result of contracting the disease. Cases were reported in Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio.

If ingested, the listeria bacteria can cause listeriosis, a rare and serious illness. The disease can cause fever, muscle aches, diarrhea or other gastrointestinal issues. In pregnant women it can cause miscarriages or stillbirths.

Read more about other deadly listeria outbreaks.

Older people, pregnant women, newborns or people with weakened immune systems are at the highest risk for contracting the disease and make up 90 percent of listeria infections, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

In 2011 a listeria outbreak related to tainted cantaloupes sickened 147 and killed 33 people.

Find out which foods are riskiest for foodborne illness.

You are using an outdated version of Internet Explorer. Please click here to upgrade your browser in order to comment.

View the original article here