Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Salmonella Outbreak

According to the CDC, there has been an outbreak of Salmonella infection in the 44 states and the infected individuals to date is 600 cases. Illness started from Sept 1, 2008 to January 23, 2009 and there has been 13 cases in Arizona.This has been traced to peanuts contaminated with Salmonella that has been produced by the Peanut Corporation of America. There has been a recall on the products that has been distributed by this company and please refer to http://www.fda.gov/ for a list of products that are recalled or call 1-800-CDC-INFO.





Signs and Symptoms


  • diarrhea

  • fever

  • abdominal cramps 12-72 hours after infection

  • bone infection (osteomyelitis) rare

  • meningitis rare

Symptoms usually lasts for 4-7 days, most individuals recover without treatment but sometimes severe infections occur especially in the very young, the very old and immunocompromised individuals.


Salmonella is diagnosed by stool cultures. They start treating with antibiotics if the patient is immunocompromised or symptoms are severe.


Please call your doctor if your child is suffering from these symptoms.