Thread: 250 people in 6 states have mystery stomach bug, CDC says

250 people in 6 states have mystery stomach bug, CDC says

Published July 24, 2013FoxNews.com

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More than 250 people in at least six states have come down with a stomach bug that may be linked to foodborne illness, according to the CDC.

The Centers for Disease Control said in a statement that as of July 22, the cyclospora infection causing diarrhea and other flu-like symptoms had been reported in Iowa, Nebraska, Texas, Wisconsin, Georgia and Connecticut.

Illinois and Kansas have also notified the agency of one case each that may have been acquired out of state but in the United States.

The CDC said 10 people have been hospitalized and most of the reported illnesses occurred from mid-June to early July.

The Food and Drug Administration is investigating the cyclospora infections, which are most often found in tropical or subtropical countries and have been linked to imported fresh produce in the past.

The agency said it is not yet clear whether the cases from each of the six states are part of the same outbreak.

The illness is usually spread when people ingest foods or water contaminated with feces. The agency said it isn't yet clear whether the cases from all of the states are linked.

The number of reported illnesses expanded from more than 200 to more than 250 on Tuesday, according to the CDC. The CDC added Georgia and Connecticut to the list of affected states.

The agency said it is investigating additional illnesses and the number of those sickened could grow.

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/0...#ixzz2a0aEV062

Stomach virus linked to produce sickens 285 people in 11 U.S. states

2 hours ago Health

(Reuters) - At least 285 people in 11 states have been sickened by a parasitic infection commonly linked to fresh produce, and the exact cause of the outbreak has yet to be pinpointed, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday.

Most of the cyclospora infections have been clustered in the Midwest, with 138 cases reported in Iowa and 70 in neighboring Nebraska. The remainder have been identified in Texas, Georgia, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, New Jersey and Ohio.

The cause of the illness has not yet been identified, but the parasite is most commonly found in fresh produce, including fruits, vegetables and herbs, grown in tropical and subtropical regions, according to Dr. Barbara Herwaldt, a medical epidemiologist at the CDC.

"Because no food item has been implicated to date we're not yet sure the cases in the various states are related," she said. "Though it's quite likely that the cases in the Midwest might be."

At least 18 people in three states have required hospitalization from the cyclospora parasite, which causes an intestinal infection called cyclosporiasis.

Cyclosporiasis is caused by ingesting food or water containing a one-celled parasite that is too small to be detected without a microscope. Symptoms include watery diarrhea, vomiting and body aches.

The symptoms usually manifest within several days of eating the contaminated food, and include diarrhea, cramps, nausea and fatigue. If not treated, the illness may last from a few days to a month or longer and patients have been known to relapse, the CDC said.

The first cases were reported in Iowa in late June, with the majority of the illnesses logged in early July. The CDC has not released the age range of those infected, but said it was working closely with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and state officials to gather more information.

"We are carefully monitoring cases that are coming to our attention now to see if there's any evidence the outbreak is ongoing," Herwaldt said. "We don't know if it is and we are following it very closely."

As a precaution, she encouraged people to thoroughly wash produce before it is eaten to minimize the chance of infection. The CDC also recommends that anyone with cyclosporiasis-like symptoms seek medical treatment and ask to be tested for the parasite.

"The good news is that the infection is easily treatable with readily available antibiotics," Herwaldt said.

Most people with healthy immune systems recover from the infection without treatment. Older people and those with weakened immune systems might be at higher risk for prolonged illness.

http://news.yahoo.com/stomach-virus-linked-produce-sickens-285-people-11-181419615.html

http://www.alipac.us/f9/fda-proposes...-foods-284471/

Cyclospora outbreak traced to prepackaged salad mix




Cylospora
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Cyclospora, a one-celled parasite, is making people sick across Nebraska and Iowa.

2013-07-30T18:10:00Z 2013-07-30T19:14:36Z Cyclospora outbreak traced to prepackaged salad mixBy MARK ANDERSEN / Lincoln Journal Star JournalStar.com
1 hour ago • By MARK ANDERSEN / Lincoln Journal Star
Investigators have traced the source of the cyclospora outbreak that sickened 78 Nebraskans and dozens more in Iowa to prepackaged salad mix.

Five Nebraskans have been hospitalized since the parasitic disease first appeared in mid-June, but all have since been released.

Cyclospora symptoms include diarrhea lasting weeks to months, fatigue, loss of appetite, weight loss, bloating, gas, stomach cramps, nausea, vomiting, muscle aches and low-grade fever.

The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services said the mix of iceberg and romaine lettuce with red cabbage and carrots came through national distribution channels. Locally grown produce is not part of the outbreak.
The brands under which the mix was sold were not identified.

And while salad mix was identified as the source of 178 cases in Nebraska and Iowa, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said not all recent cyclospora cases in the country can be linked to it.

Roughly 200 more cases of cyclospora have been uncovered in another 13 widely scattered states, ranging from Minnesota to New York, Florida to Texas.

Nebraska epidemiologist Dr. Tom Safranek said it’s a complex issue, but the incidents in Nebraska and Iowa were clearly associated with a single outbreak in mid-June.

Sporadic new cases continue to be reported here, but the great majority of those who became ill began developing symptoms before July 1, Safranek said.

While investigators remain vigilant, he said, “Right now, we don’t see a serious ongoing food threat.”

Everyone who got sick was extensively interviewed to determine the source of the outbreak, he said. The department asks each person about 300 questions.

Safranek said Nebraska was working with the Food and Drug Administration to identify exactly where the product was distributed and where in the food production chain it became contaminated.

It’s possible the product was sold under multiple brands. Often, he said, five-pound sacks of salad mix will be sold to local distributors, which repackage it for consumers.

While it’s not likely any of the contaminated salad remains on market shelves, Safranek said it was important to track down where a breakdown occurred.

Prepackaged salad is a triple washed product, so it’s possible it became contaminated in a wash, or it could have resulted from a problem with field irrigation water.

“There are a number of vulnerabilities,” he said.

Nationwide, the CDC said at least 21 people have been hospitalized and most of the reported illnesses occurred from mid-June to early July. The CDC and the Food and Drug Administration are investigating the cyclospora infections but have not yet pointed to a source.

"CDC is still actively pursuing all leads and hasn't implicated any single food item as the cause of the outbreak in all states," said CDC spokeswoman Sharon Hoskins. "We're still not sure if the cases in all of the states are linked to the same outbreak."

Hoskins said that in some previous outbreaks of cyclospora, the cause was never discovered.

The FDA said Tuesday that it is following Iowa's and Nebraska’s lead on the salad mix but is following other leads as well. An agency statement said investigators are trying to trace the paths of the food eaten by those who fell ill. That process is "labor intensive and painstaking work, requiring the collection, review and analysis of hundreds and at times thousands of invoices and shipping documents," the FDA said.

Reach Mark Andersen at 402-473-7238 or mandersen@journalstar.com. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

http://journalstar.com/news/local/cyclospora-outbreak-traced-to-prepackaged-salad-mix/article_0d3c1f1c-fbe8-5128-851f-034fc204837c.html

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http://www.alipac.us/f19/bagged-sala...mexico-284880/

Food safety

Parasite infections top 500; source questions linger

JoNel Aleccia NBC News



CDC

Bagged salad has been named as the source of a cyclospora food poisoning outbreak in two states, but the rest remain a mystery.

The case count has topped 500 in an ongoing outbreak of parasite-borne food poisoning, but government health officials still have not identified what’s making people sick in all of the 16 affected states.

Last week, the Food and Drug administration confirmed that bagged mixed salad made by a Mexican division of Salinas, Calif., produce supplier Taylor Farms was behind cyclospora infections in Iowa and Nebraska, which have sickened nearly 240 people in those two states.

Commercial packs of salad mix sold at Olive Garden and Red Lobster restaurants in those states were identified as the culprit, the FDA said. Bruce Taylor, the chief executive for Taylor Farms, told NBC News that the salad mix containing lettuce, carrots and red cabbage came from Mexico.

“All components were grown in Mexico by contract growers adhering to Taylor Farms de Mexico strict food safety protocols,” Taylor wrote in an email.

But neither FDA nor Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials have said what’s behind the still-growing outbreak in Texas, where some 204 people have been sickened. Officials with Darden restaurants, which operate Olive Garden and Red Lobster, said that Taylor Farms doesn’t supply their produce in Texas.

And federal officials still haven’t determined whether it’s all one outbreak, or whether it’s a series of outbreaks, that have collectively sickened 504 people and hospitalized at least 30.

“CDC and its public health partners are vigorously working to determine if the conclusion reached in Iowa and Nebraska helps explain the increased cases of cyclosporasis in other states,” the CDC website said. “We will update the public on the progress of the national investigation as information becomes available.”

CDC director Dr. Thomas Frieden told CBS news that the agency doesn’t know if all the cyclospora parasites are the same and that the lack of ability to sequence the genome of the organism is costing time.

“Not being able to analyze the genomic sequence in real time is like not being able to solve a crime without fingerprints,” he said.

But food safety experts say that state and federal health agencies have mishandled the investigation, leaving the public still unsure what products may make them sick.

“We all recognize that this outbreak has gone on for far too long without sufficient answers,” said Dr. Michael Osterholm, a former Minnesota state epidemiologist and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, or CIDRAP, at the University of Minnesota.

Osterholm said CDC still hasn’t organized a case-control study, in which epidemiologists contact people who are sick and also healthy people to review what they’ve eaten recently, potentially pinpointing specific foods linked to illness.

Dr. Rob Tauxe, deputy director of the CDC’s division of foodborne, waterborne and environmental illnesses, said the agency is working many angles to track the rare parasite.

Case-control studies can pin-point a particular food item, but so can tracebacks of likely food sources from settings where exposure occurred. In big, multi-state outbreaks, often it is a combination, he said.

“In general outbreaks get solved using a mix of information,” he told NBC News in an email.

Meanwhile, several consumers nationwide have sued Darden Corp. and others, saying that they contracted cyclospora infections after eating tainted salad. Justin Haren, 35, of Toledo, Ohio, filed a suit in that state this week alleging that he became ill after eating at an Olive Garden restaurant on May 28. He wound up in an emergency department a month later and tests confirmed he had cyclosporosis, according to Simon & Luke, the Houston food safety law firm that represents him.

Most of the illnesses in the outbreak were reported from mid-June through early July, with the number of new cases falling significantly, the CDC website indicates.
States where cyclospora infections have been reported include Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York (including New York City), Ohio, Texas and Wisconsin.

Cyclospora is a rare parasite transmitted by human feces, typically through contaminated produce or water. It can cause a range of distressing symptoms, typically including prolonged and intense diarrhea. It can be successfully treated with common antibiotics.

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/parasite-infections-top-500-source-questions-linger-6C10878818