14 DAY TRIAL // Yesterday, the Food and Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) announced that a salmonella outbreak was ongoing in the United States and issued a public health alert.
The Service explained that, according to information at hand, nearly 280 people in 18 states had been infected by the time the news of the outbreak was made public.
“This public health alert is being issued after an estimated 278 illnesses were recently reported in 18 states, predominantly in California. The outbreak is continuing,” the FSIS wrote in a press release.
The people who have thus far fallen sick all displayed symptoms such as diarrhea, abdominal pains, vomiting, and fever.
No deaths have been reported, but health officials say that salmonella infections can prove deadly, especially when they hit people with weak immune systems.
Infants, the elderly, HIV-positive individuals and those undergoing chemotherapy are the ones most vulnerable.
By the looks of it, the salmonella outbreak was caused by raw chicken products made at three Foster Farms plant in California. Hence the fact that most of the people who got sick were from this state.
“The investigations indicate that consumption of Foster Farms brand chicken and other brand chicken produced at Foster Farms plants are the likely source of this outbreak of Salmonella Heidelberg infections,” the FSIS detailed.
Furthermore, “Illnesses were linked to Foster Farms brand chicken through epidemiologic, laboratory and traceback investigations conducted by local, state, and federal officials.”
For the time being, health officials are unable to say for sure which batches of products are the ones to blame for the salmonella outbreak.
What they do know is that the raw products made at the facilities now under investigation show one of the establishment numbers P6137, P6137A and P7632 inside a USDA mark of inspection or elsewhere on the package, and that they were chiefly marketed in California, Oregon and Washington State.
Hopefully, more information will soon be shared with the public. Still, “courtesy” of the government shutdown, odds are this time news will not travel all that fast.