Health Law

Illinois Subway Salmonella Outbreak Update

By Drew Falkenstein

The Salmonella Hvittingfoss outbreak linked to Illinois Subway restaurants has sickened 79 people with confirmed foodpoioning illnesses.  Of course, 79 confirmed cases meanspossibly thousands of unconfirmed illnesses.  The Illinois Department of Public Health's update today states as follows:

Confirmed cases of Salmonella serotype Hvittingfoss – 79.

Age range of confirmed cases: 2 to 79.

Cases have reported eating at Subway restaurants located in 26 counties -- Bureau, Cass, Champaign, Christian, Coles, Dekalb, DeWitt, Fulton, Henry, Knox, LaSalle, Livingston, Macon, Marshall, McLean, Moultrie, Ogle, Peoria, Sangamon, Schuyler, Shelby, Tazewell, Vermilion, Warren, Will and Winnebago.

Investigation is ongoing. Numbers will be updated June 15, if additional cases are identified.
 

Sheila Shelton of the Pontiac Daily Leader reported on a newly found outbreak case in Livingston County, Illinois, quoting the County's Public Health and Education Director Linda Rhodes, "'We have a confirmed case of this type of salmonella and, yes, it is the same type that is being reported from around the state associated with Subway restaurants."  Rhodes was also careful to point out that further testing on the stool isolate of the infected individual had not yet been done, and that the case couldn't yet be counted as confirmed as a result.  But in a state that sees Salmonella Hvittingfoss only a time or two a year, odds are that any Salmonella Hvittingfoss illnesses in the state right now are as a result of infection, or secondary infection, at a Subway restaurant. 

Full post as published by Food Poison Blog on June 14, 2010 (boomark / email).