The toll from latest outbreak of salmonella-spiked sushi has climbed to 316, according to a new government report.

And that number may be a huge underestimate, since food safety officials estimate that for every salmonella infection they hear about, 29.3 go unreported. Using that multiplier, the total number of tuna-sickened Americans may be closer to 9,575.  

CDC

Tainted tuna scraped from the backbone of the fish has been implicated in salmonella outbreak that has sickened hundreds across 26 states and Washington, D.C.

The outbreak has been widespread, with people sickened in 26 states as well as the District of Columbia, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

So far, 304 people have been diagnosed the rare salmonella Bareilly strain, while another 12 have become ill with salmonella Nchanga, the CDC reported.

While 37 have been hospitalized, no deaths have been attributed to the tainted tuna thus far, according to the CDC.
The toll could grow; illnesses that occurred after April 17 might not have been recorded yet because of the lag between when people get sick and when they report to health officials. 

Agency investigators determined that the likely culprit was frozen raw yellow fin tuna, known as Nakaochi Scrape, made by Moon Marine USA Corporation. Government labs have isolated Salmonella from 96 percent of the samples taken from intact yellow fin tuna scrape produced by Moon Marine. In April, Moon Marine recalled 58,828 pounds of the frozen tuna product. It wasn't for sale to individual customers, but may have been used to make sushi, sashimi, ceviche and similar dishes in restaurants and grocery stores.

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CDC

Tainted tuna scraped from the backbone of the fish has been implicated in salmonella outbreak that has sickened at least 200 people in 21 states and Washington, D.C.

At least 258 people in 24 states and Washington, D.C., now have been sickened by raw scraped tuna contaminated with not one but two rare strains of salmonella, government health officials reported Thursday.

Tainted tuna scraped from the backbone of the fish has been linked not only to the salmonella Bareilly strain, but also to salmonella Nchanga infections, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. The two genetic fingerprint patterns of the strains have been grouped into a single outbreak strain, CDC officials said.

At least 247 people have been confirmed with salmonella Bareilly infections, and another 11 have been infected with salmonella Nchanga. Thirty-two victims have been hospitalized, but no deaths have been reported.

A frozen yellowfin tun product, known as Nakaochi Scrape, produced by Moon Marine USA Corp. is the likely source of the outbreak.

In April, Moon Marine recalled 58,828 pounds of the frozen tuna product. It wasn't for sale to individual customers, but may have been used to make sushi, sashimi, ceviche and similar dishes in restaurants and grocery stores.

The outbreak could continue to grow. Illnesses that occured after March 27 might not be reported yet because of the time frame between when a person becomes ill and when it's reported to authorities.

At least two people have filed lawsuits against Moon Marine, a Cupertino, Calif., firm. The women, both from Wisconsin, said they became ill after eating tainted seafood.

The CDC's most recent estimates suggest that for every salmonella infection detected, perhaps 29.3 go unreported. Using that multiplier, 7,559 people may have been affected so far by the tainted tuna outbreak.

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First lawsuit filed in salmonella sushi outbreak

Courtesy of Amy Karfonta

Amy Karfonta, a 22-year-old from Wisconsin, came down with salmonella symptoms days after eating a tuna roll at a sushi restaurant.

The first lawsuit spawned by a salmonella outbreak that appears to be linked to sushi -- which has now sickened 141 people in 20 states plus the District of Columbia -- was filed late Wednesday against Moon Marine U.S.A. Corp, a Cupertino, Calif., seafood importer.

The suit alleges that two Wisconsin women, ages 22 and 33, were hospitalized and still are recovering from salmonella poisoning contracted six to nine weeks ago when they dined, separately, at the same local restaurant, both consuming tuna rolls originally sold by Moon Marine.

“I was just in complete body pain from head to toe and the next day I got bloody diarrhea. I couldn’t even drink water,” said Amy Karfonta, 22, of Muskego, Wisc. Her symptoms appeared six days after she ate the suspect sushi. She then made two trips to local emergency rooms where doctors obtained a stool sample, re-hydrated her with intravenous fluids and examined her colon via a CT scan.

“When they saw how bad my colon was ulcerated, they first thought it could have been Crohn’s disease, or something where I may have had to have my colon removed at 22,” Karfonta said. Her most severe symptoms began to wane after the ER treatments.

The suit, filed by the Houston-based lawfirm Simon & Luke, with co-counsel the Gomez Law Firm, centers on a product called “Nakaochi Scrape” -- frozen backmeat shaved from fish bones and sold by Moon Marine to retailers and distributors across the nation. The “Scrape” wound up in nearly 60,000 pounds of raw, ground yellowfin tuna later recalled by Moon Marine after it was linked to hundreds of salmonella infections during the past two months.

A phone call made by msnbc.com to Moon Marine USA was routed to voicemail and the company did not immediately respond with a comment.

Nakaochi Scrape, injected inside tuna sushi rolls, “looks like ground tuna hamburger,” said Ron Simon, managing partner of Simon & Luke.

“The problem is this (Moon Marine) product got repackaged and resold. There are sushi restaurants that may not even know they’re serving this tuna; they may not even know it’s been recalled,” Simon said. “Also, it comes as a frozen product so it sits on the shelves for as long as six months.

“We’ve got 58,000 pounds of this stuff out there. That’s a lot of sushi -- 29 tons of scraped tuna back.”

Furious, on-the-ground detective work has been conducted, Simon said, to isolate the type of salmonella involved, find the 141 known victims of this outbreak, and determine the U.S. source of the tainted sushi. That work, executed in recent weeks by federal and state health agents, continues as authorities now work to retrace the overseas plant that originally produced this batch of Nakaochi Scrape.

More than 2,500 forms of salmonella are known to exist. When people come to doctor’s offices, clinics or hospitals complaining of severe abdominal pain and diarrhea, medical attendants typically obtain stool samples. Those specimens are sent to the state health departments for DNA typing to pinpoint which of the 2,500 salmonella strains the patients are harboring.

In this outbreak, the tests showed 141 ill sushi eaters all were hit with a rare type called salmonella bareilly, Simon said.

“It has a certain genetic code. When these people test positive, the health departments upload that DNA code into the computer that connects the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and all the other state health departments to see if anybody else has a genetic match. And bam, all of the sudden, there are 141 people that all share the same genetic code,” Simon said. “They are in 20 states and the District of Columbia.”

Health officials have interviewed many or most of those 141 people to ask what they ate the week before getting sick. Those answers also were uploaded into the national computer system -- “and I’ll say that about 80 percent recalled eating sushi,” Simon said. “The investigators dug a little deeper and found out everybody was eating spicy tuna rolls.”

This outbreak is uncommon, the lawyer added, because salmonella is routinely found in the guts of cattle, sheep, hens and infected humans -- not fish.

Simon’s second initial plaintiff is another Wisconsin woman, Amber Azzolina. She ate at the same local sushi restaurant on Feb. 14, consuming a spicy tuna roll, she told her lawyer. Two days later, Azzolina began feeling abdominal pain and passing bloody stools. Two days after that, her husband, Carmen, complained of a stomachache and headache. Amber Azzolina later spiked a fever of 101, was vomiting and still had bloody diarrhea nine days after that meal. On Feb. 23, she checked into a local emergency room where she was treated. 

For Amy Karfonta, the salmonella symptoms caused her to miss a planned physical and agility test to land a job with her local police department. She’s not sure, she said, when another opening at the department will occur.

Her health still has not fully restored, she added. She lost eight pounds due to the illness. She still faces a follow-up scope exam to determine how much her colon was damaged.

“That will be in late April because if there’s something still tender in there,” Karfonta said, “they don’t want to rupture it.”

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100 may now be sick from salmonella in sushi

Featurepics.com

At least 100 people are reported ill in an outbreak of salmonella Bareilly that may be tied to sushi or other raw seafood.

At least 100 people have now been sickened by an outbreak of salmonella possibly linked to sushi, government health officials said Friday. Nearly a quarter of them are from New York, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Ten people have been hospitalized in the outbreak of a rare strain of salmonella Bareilly that has affected victims in 19 states and the District of Columbia. No deaths have been reported.

Victims have ranged in age from 4 to 78, and include people who reported illness between Jan. 28 and March 23. Illnesses that occurred after March 8 might not be known because of the lag time between when people get sick and when they report it.

No food source has been positively identified, a CDC report said. However, initial interviews with 51 sick people show that 69 percent ate sushi, sashimi or similar foods in the week before they became ill. That compares with only about 5 percent of people in a control group who ate sushi, sashimi or ceviche made with raw fish or shellfish in the week before being interviewed.

The investigation into specific types of sushi that may be implicated is ongoing. An internal memo from the Food and Drug Administration inadvertently released earlier this week suggested that spicy tuna roll sushi was “highly suspect.”

The largest number of illnesses has been reported in New York, where 23 people were sickened.

Others include 10 in Maryland; nine in Illinois and Wisconsin; seven in New Jersey; five in Virginia and Connecticut; four each inGeorgia, Massachusetts and Rhode Island; three in South Carolina, Texas and Pennsylvania; two each in Alabama, Louisiana and North Carolina and the District of Columbia; and one each in Arkansas, Missouri and Mississippi.

Salmonella Bareilly is a rare strain sometimes associated with bean sprouts. Salmonella infections can cause nausea, vomiting, cramping, fever, chills and headache. Symptoms usually last four to seven days and typically resolve on their own. In some cases, however, patients have to be hospitalized.

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Featurepics.com

Federal health officials are investigating an outbreak of salmonella that may be tied to seafood and sushi.

Government health officials are investigating a growing outbreak of salmonella food poisoning possibly tied to restaurant sushi that may have sickened at least 93 people in 19 states and the District of Columbia.

The outbreak of salmonella Bareilly that may have sent at least 10 people to the hospital is mostly clustered on the eastern seaboard and the Gulf Coast, although cases have been reported as far west as Missouri and Texas, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. No deaths have been reported in the outbreak that includes reports of illness between Jan. 28 and March 23.

The outbreak was initially reported Tuesday in an internal memo inadvertently sent to everyone at the Food and Drug Administration, said Curtis Allen, an FDA spokesman.

Officials with CDC on Wednesday issued an update, but said that a food source had not been conclusively identified.

However, interviews by state public health officials showed that many of the ill people reported consuming sushi, sashimi, or similar foods in a variety of locations in the week before becoming ill. Among 51 ill people for whom information is available, 35 or 69 percent reported eating those foods in the week before becoming ill. That's higher than the results compared with a survey of healthy people in which only 5 percent reported eating those foods in the previous week.

The initial email identified spicy tuna roll sushi as “highly suspect,” but Allen emphasized that that was a preliminary speculation that may be proved wrong later. The CDC notice said the investigation into specific types of sushi is continuing.

The federal agencies are focusing on six restaurant clusters in Texas, Wisconsin, Maryland and Connecticut, according to the FDA memo.

Salmonella Bareilly is a rare strain sometimes associated with bean sprouts. Salmonella infections can cause nausea, vomiting, cramping, fever, chills and headache. Symptoms usually last four to seven days.

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