MI death linked to listeria outabreak in packaged salads — CDC

A listeria outbreak has been linked to packaged salads made by Dole at a processing facility in OH, health officials announced on Friday.

The people who have got sick due to the outbreak in the United States lived in New Jersey, New York, Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

Since July 2015, 12 people have contracted Listeria monocytogenes (listeriosis) and were hospitalized; one of those twelve died. These kind of products are sold by brands such as Fresh Selections, Simple Truth, The Little Salad Bar, President’s choice and Marketside.

Several packaged salad products have been recalled, including Dole and store brands for Kroger, Aldi, Meijer and Walmart.

Dole Fresh Vegetables Inc. said in a statement on Friday that products that are being withdrawn can be identified with a code beginning with the letter “A” in the upper right-hand corner of the package. The carriers are packaged salads from a Dole Food Company facility in Springfield, Ohio.

The bags in question were manufactured in Dole’s Springfield, Ohio facility and distributed throughout the USA and Canada to consumers and restaurants and other food facilities. The infection can also pose serious dangers to pregnant women, the elderly, children and anyone with a weak immune system. The agency added that there is no proof that Dole salads manufactured in other plants are also affected by the listeria outbreak. No other facilities have been detected as having an outbreak.

Listeria can cause listeriosis, a life-threatening illness. Consumers who have purchased these products should not eat them.

When a person contracts the disease, it can cause fever, muscle aches, gastrointestinal symptoms and even death.

In all, 12 people have been infected with the outbreak in six states. The Ohio Department of Agriculture isolated listeria in a Dole-brand Field Greens salad collected from a retail location and produced at Dole’s site in Springfield.

With an incubation period of three to 70 days and the ability to survive cold temperatures, food-borne illness Listeria is considered hard to trace and track.