News

January 11, 2009

Salmonella reported in Luzerne County

TIM DARRAGH The Morning Call

A dozen Pennsylvanians, including residents in Luzerne and Lehigh counties, are among close to 400 people infected in a nationwide outbreak of salmonellosis.

Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Pennsylvania Department of Health confirmed the bacterial outbreak.

They don’t know the source of the contamination, however.

People with salmonellosis might experience diarrhea, fever and vomiting. In very young or elderly people, symptoms can be worse, including bloodstream infections. The symptoms generally appear one to three days after exposure to the bacteria.

This particular strain of the bug, salmonella Typhimurium, is the most commonly found by doctors, state Health Department spokeswoman Stacy Kriedeman said.

Once health officials realized that the outbreak was widespread, they had to undertake special “fingerprinting” procedures at the Department of Health’s laboratory in Lionville, Chester County, to determine if any reported salmonellosis case was linked to this outbreak.

“We were made aware of it just a few days ago,” Kriedeman said.

Investigating foodborne illnesses is difficult because it usually requires health officials to interview patients, who have to recall what they ate and when they ate it days later. Often, all the direct evidence is gone by the time a patient sees the doctor.

In all, 388 people across 42 states have been infected with this strain of salmonella since October. Sixty-seven needed hospitalization. The most recently confirmed illness onset in Pennsylvania was Dec. 15, although other cases outside the state were reported as late as Dec. 29.

The ill Pennsylvania residents are in Bucks, Butler, Chester, Clinton, Delaware, Philadelphia, Lancaster, Lehigh, Luzerne, and Montgomery counties. Patient ages in Pennsylvania ranged from 3 to 73 years, and none of the infections was fatal, the Health Department reported.

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