CDC report links Salmonella to restaurant tomatoes

Contaminated fresh tomatoes served in US eateries were responsible for an outbreak of Salmonella food poisoning that affected 183 people in 21 states and Canada, federal health officials reported on Friday.

Of the total sickened people, 51 were alone from Massachusetts. Fortunately, there were no reports of death, although 22 people were admitted to hospitals. The outbreak is now over and is no longer a threat, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

After asking some questions like what the victims consumed and where they had taken their food before falling ill, the investigators reached a conclusion that restaurant tomatoes are the root cause of their illness.

"We have identified tomatoes eaten in restaurants as the cause of this outbreak. We don't have any information that a name or a certain type of restaurant is involved. As far as we can tell, it's across the board," said CDC’s Dr. Christopher Braden, a food-borne outbreak and surveillance expert.

According to Dr. David Acheson, chief medical officer of the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, the Food and Drug Administration has initiated probing the source of the contaminated tomatoes. He said the FDA would try to trace the sources from where the restaurants had purchased their tomatoes.

"In particular, FDA is working closely with the states of Minnesota, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, since groups of illnesses were specifically reported in these states," the US health agency said in a statement.

Salmonella is a kind of rod-shaped Gram-negative enterobacteria that causes typhoid fever, paratyphoid fever and food-borne illnesses like bloody diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain. It can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, weak or aged people, and others with deteriorated immune systems.

There are nearly 2,500 kinds of salmonella. The type in the recent outbreak was salmonella typhimurium, which is one of the most common types. Salmonella outbreaks take place in tomatoes periodically. A 2004 outbreak that sickened more than 400 people was linked to tomatoes sold in Sheetz convenience stores.

The states that came under the influence of the latest outbreak are: Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.

For the last three months, United States is dealing with outbreaks of food-borne illness. An E. coli outbreak that occurred in the months of August and September sickened 300 people and eventually killed three. The E. coli outbreak was linked to contaminated spinach from California.

Concerned with the couple of outbreaks that occurred simultaneously and were caused by the food items, the health agency advised the consumers to take some precautions, which include buying fresh, undamaged product, washing it before use, and keeping hands and food preparation utensils clean.

"In light of recent outbreaks, FDA continues to emphasize consumer advice to reduce the risk of food-borne illness, including Salmonella-related illness, from fresh produce," the FDA said.

As per the CDC estimates, there are 76 million cases of food-borne illness in the US every year and 5,000 people die from such infections.