1 dead in listeria outbreak linked to packaged lettuce

The 12 people hospitalized have been from six US states: Indiana, Michigan, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Owing to which, one person has died and 12 others have fallen sick.

Packaged salads under the brand names Dole, Fresh Selections, Simple Truth, Marketside, The Little Salad Bar and President’s Choice should be thrown away because they could be tainted with listeria. Both packaged salads have a product code beginning with a letter “A” in the upper right-hand corner, according to a news release from Giant. Dole has recalled all the tainted salad packaged at the plant.

In a statement sent to ABC News on Friday, Dole officials said the withdrawal of the salad was being done “out of an abundance of caution” and in collaboration with the CDC and U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The CDC reports that there is no evidence that other salads made at other facilities have any contamination. Consumers who have packages with a manufacturing code starting in “A” should discard the products.

Even though the outbreak occurred last summer, consumers shouldn’t eat salads produced by Dole in Ohio. An investigation into the outbreak was launched in September, but the cause was not isolated until January, the CDC said.

The CDC recommends washing any drawers the salad packages were stored in, as well as any utensils or cutting boards that came into contact with the product.

Five of the five ill people who were asked about the packaged salad reported eating the salad in the month before becoming ill.

According to information found in the CDC website, Listeria -also called Listeriosis- is a infection normally caused by consuming food contaminated with the bacteria Listeria monocytogenes. Listeria is a serious infection with early symptoms that include fever, muscle aches, diarrhea and other gastrointestinal symptoms.

The incubation for listeria is between three and 70 days, which can make an outbreak very hard to track.

“Laboratory tests showed that the Listeria isolate from the packaged salad was highly related genetically to isolates from ill people”.