Federal health officials are investigating a salmonella outbreak tied to jalapeños that’s sickened 345 people in 27 states, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday.
The jalapeños were supplied by California-based Coast Citrus Distributors and sourced from Mexico, the CDC said. They were served at restaurants including Chipotle and Qdoba.
Minnesota and Colorado account for the vast majority of cases, with 110 cases each. Illinois has reported 30 cases and Kansas 13. The remaining states are Alabama, Arkansas, California, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
Thirty-six people have been hospitalized, the CDC said. No deaths have been reported.
Chipotle said on Tuesday that it had removed jalapeños from its menu “out of an abundance of caution.” On Wednesday, Qdoba said it had “proactively removed jalapeños from all our restaurants.”
The CDC said there is no ongoing risk at either restaurant because the jalapeños were removed from their menus.
Coast Citrus Distributors has agreed to issue a recall, the agency said.
The Food and Drug Administration said it began investigating “multiple ingredients” tied to the outbreak on July 22 but has not named any restaurants or suppliers.
The CDC said the FDA is working to determine if the jalapeños went to grocery stores.
The FDA did not respond to requests for comment.
Minnesota state officials said the majority of people sick in the state reported eating at Chipotle between June 14 and July 14. The remaining people reported eating at a variety of other Mexican-style restaurants, said Carlota Medus, a senior epidemiologist supervisor in the Minnesota Department of Health Foodborne Disease Unit.
Salmonella infection is a foodborne illness usually caused by eating raw or undercooked produce contaminated with salmonella bacteria, according to the Mayo Clinic. Symptoms include diarrhea, stomach cramps and fever.
The outbreak comes as more than a dozen states are seeing a surge in cases from another foodborne illness, cyclosporiasis. That outbreak has been traced to lettuce served at Taco Bell that was supplied by Taylor Farms and sourced from Central Mexico. More than 22,000 people have confirmed or suspected illnesses and 517 people have been hospitalized in that outbreak, according to the CDC.
Byron Chaves, a food safety expert at Rutgers University, called the dual outbreaks “coincidental” and likely the result of increased testing.
However, he called the CDC’s response to the salmonella outbreak “delayed,” noting that Minnesota first began reporting cases of salmonella earlier in the summer.
“Why is the response so broken?” he asked.
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