A five-state Salmonella outbreak linked to tainted ground beef has sickened three people in Wisconsin and hospitalized one, according to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (WDHS). One of the case patients is a child.
Those who became ill are from three counties: Oneida county, in the northeast part of the state; and Waukesha and Fon du Lac counties in the southeast part of the state. WDHS says they are working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other state and federal health officials in an ongoing investigation of the outbreak.
A total of 16 people in five states have been sickened by the outbreak, announced Friday, January 25 by the CDC. The cases by state are as follows: Arizona (1), Illinois (2), Iowa (1), Michigan (9), and Wisconsin (3). Seven of them were hospitalized.
Seven people- six from Michigan and one form Arizona, reported eating raw beef Kibbeh at a restaurant in Maycomb County, Michigan before becoming ill. Kibbeh is a Middle Eastern dish made with ground meat, bulgur, onions and spices. Often the meat mixture is stuffed inside a croquette and fried, but sometimes the mixture is served raw, as it was in this case.
Federal authorities have chosen to withhold the name of the restaurant. But they have disclosed the name of two companies that supplied meat to the restaurant, both of which have issued recalls.
Jouni Meats Inc. of Sterling Heights, MI issued a recall of 500 pounds of meat on January 24. And Gab Halal Foods of Troy, MI recalled 550 pounds of ground beef on January 25. In both cases, the meat was produced during the first week of December, but there is a concern that some customers may have purchased and frozen the meat. Customers who did so should not eat it. Public health investigators are still tracking the source of the beef that caused illness in the case patients who did not eat at the restaurant.
