Four people in New Hampshire with Salmonella poisoning are part of a 10-state outbreak linked to contaminated bean sprouts. All four people said they ate the sprouts at restaurants. Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that most of the 63 people who are part of the outbreak so far ate sprouts at Asian restaurants before becoming ill, the names of those establishments have not been disclosed.
Health authorities say they have notified restaurants that received shipments of sprouts from Wonton Foods Inc. in Brooklyn not to use them. Traceback investigations have implicated Wonton Foods as the producer of the tainted sprouts, but the company has not yet issued a recall.
The 10 states included in the outbreak are: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Montana, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont. Montana has one case patient who likely contracted the infection on a visit to the East Coast.
During interviews, patients reported onset of illness ranging from September 30, 2014 to November 8, 2014. Although no hospitalizations were reported in New Hampshire, 11 people in other states were hospitalized.
Symptoms of Salmonella poisoning including fever, abdominal pain and diarrhea, usually develop six to 72 hours after exposure and last about a week. For some people, the diarrhea is so severe that hospitalization is required. These patients are at greater risk of developing a serious, sometimes fatal, bloodstream infection.
This is the third time this year that bean sprouts have been linked to a multistate food poisoning outbreak. In May, an E.coli outbreak was lined to clover sprouts. In October, a Listeria outbreak was lined to mung bean sprouts.
