Three more states have been added to the Taylor Farms iceberg lettuce Cyclospora outbreak, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The total case count is now 11,458 illnesses reported from 20 states. That is an increase of 555 more patients since the last update was issued on August 20, 2026. This outbreak is slowing down. The three new states are Georgia, Tennessee, and Texas.
The case count by state is: Arkansas (82), Georgia (3), Illinois (278), Indiana (823), Iowa (130), Kansas (331), Kentucky (329), Maine (16), Massachusetts (18), Michigan (4,846), Missouri (1,010), Nebraska (199), New Hampshire (42), North Carolina (2), Ohio (2,679), Oklahoma (241), Pennsylvania (244), Tennessee (5), Texas (20), and West Virginia (160). Illness onset dates range from June 14, 2026 to August 15, 2026. The patient age range was not mentioned. At least 495 people have been hospitalized. Two people who lived in Michigan have died.
The illness onset date range extends beyond the time Taylor Farms de Mexico recalled its iceberg lettuce on July 17, 2026, much of it sold at Taco Bell restaurants. The CDC offered no explanation for this discrepancy.
These numbers are still lower than the numbers the individual states are reporting. Michigan alone is reporting 14,510 cases and Ohio has 3,401. The discrepancy happens because of different counting methods, and the CDC and FDA are now only reported confirmed cases.
The true number of people sick in this outbreak is definitely much higher than the number reported. Many people do not see a doctor when they contract this infection and are not counted. The multiplier epidemiologists use when estimating the number of patients in a cyclosporiasis outbreak is 83.1. That means there could be as many as 950,000 people sick just in those 20 states.
Cyclospora genotyping is different from whole genome sequencing used on bacteria because it targets specific markers to group genetically related parasites. Genotyping performed on samples from sick people in this outbreak shows that the cyclospora parasites that caused these illnesses are genetically related, which means that patients in this outbreak likely got sick from the same source.
