US (WI): E. Coli outbreak found to have spread to Wisconsin

After the Centers for Disease Control recalled romaine lettuce for reported cases of E. Coli exposure, health officials recently added Wisconsin, Mississippi and Tennessee to the list of states reporting food poisoning cases linked to the outbreak.

The CDC has pinpointed Yuma, Arizona as the region likely growing lettuce contaminated with E. coli. The outbreak has infected 98 people across 22 states since mid-March, according to the latest reports. So far, no deaths have occurred, but 46 patients have been hospitalized, including 10 with kidney failure.

Adam Borger, outreach program manager at the University of Wisconsin Food Research Institute, said this bacterium is an “extremely nasty” pathogen linked to outbreaks in other leafy greens over the past decade.

“The difficulty with figuring out exactly where this came from is how especially this romaine lettuce is handled,” Borger said. “The distribution chain with lettuce from farm to where the consumer gets it involves whole lot of different steps.”

Read more at The Badger Herald.