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One Death in Maine Salmonella Outbreak

By Dan Flynn and Suzanna Schreck

An outbreak of Salmonella in a Camden, ME retirement and assisted living facility has caused seven illnesses, including one fatality.
According to a report in the Bangor Daily News, epidemiologists with the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention have identified the outbreak strain as Salmonella javiana, but have not been able to determine its source.
The newspaper said several residents in the 150-resident Quarry Hill facility became ill on Jan. 24.  The resident who died repeatedly declined treatment before being admitted to the Penobscot Bay Medical Center in Rockport, where the person died Feb. 2.
Dr. Stephen Sears, acting director of the Maine CDC, told the Daily News that because Salmonella is usually foodborne, investigators have tried to find a contaminated food source, but have so far been unable to track it down. "Oftentimes when we start investigating, the food's gone," he said. "It's gone, it's been consumed, there isn't any way to find one thing that everybody ate." 

Full post as published by Food Safety News on February 10, 2011 (boomark / email).