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At least 101 people have been hospitalized during the outbreak. Three deaths have been reported in Kentucky, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
At least 240 people have been infected with salmonella Typhimurium and 30 have been sickened by salmonella Newport.
The outbreak has been blamed on contaminated cantaloupes from Chamberlain Farms of Owensville, Ind., which was identified as one source of the problem. The company recalled its entire crop of cantaloupes on Aug. 22. Health officials are continuing to investigate whether there were other sources as well.
Illnesses have been reported from July 6 to Aug. 30, the CDC said. Victims range in age from less than 1 to 100 years, with a median age of 49. Illnesses that occurred after Aug. 20 might not yet be logged because of lags in reporting.
Most of the illnesses have been reported in Kentucky, where 70 people were sickened. Another 26 were reported ill in Illinois, with 24 sick in Indiana, 16 in Alabama and 15 in Missouri, officials said.
Chamberlain Farms also recalled its watermelons this week after inspectors detected a different strain of salmonella on the fruit.
Indiana state health officials collected and tested samples of the firm’s watermelon, which revealed an additional strain of salmonella Newport. That strain is the same as that found in a cluster of 25 infections in eight states currently being investigated by state and federal officials.
No link has been established yet between the fruit and those illnesses, the CDC said.
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Even though I wash fruit carefully, I've quit buying cantaloupe which I adore. Sad state of food safety affairs.
Me too. I imagine there were many, many more incidents that went unreported. I ate a whole melon over a period of a few days and I had several problems for days if not weeks. I blamed in on the melon before I even heard the melon was causing problems. This happened to me years ago too with canteloupe. Inerestingly I did wash this one thoroughly inside and out so I probably was lucky if you call it that.
Probably brought in on the hands of an Illegal Alian Mellon picker.
I wish they would list the stores that this vendor does business with.
It makes one wonder what else is contaminated and if it is unintentional. Especially produce coming in from overseas could be the place to intentionally poison foodstuffs. China is always being identified with putting just about anything in their exported foods. (dog/cat foods even). I wouldn't put it past some terrorist cells will poison foodstuff sent to the U.S. in the future. Time will tell. If we can, we should try to grow whatever we can ourselves.
How long does it take to shut down the farm?????? this crap has been going on 5 months now, somebody is not doing their damn job.....................