U.S. CDC Declares End Of Salmonella Outbreak That Hit 48 States

An outbreak of Salmonella infections traced to backyard poultry flocks that infected 1,135 people across 48 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico has been declared over, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced, Food Service News (FSN) reported.

Photo Insert: A CDC staff

The outbreak resulted in two deaths but the ages of the victims were not reported. A fourth of the patients were children younger than 5 years old. Twelve percent of the patients were children younger than 1 year old, according to CDC.

“The true number of sick people in these outbreaks is likely much higher than the number reported, and these outbreaks may not have been limited to the states with known illnesses,” according to the CDC.

The first person became ill on Dec. 15, 2020, and the last person documented as being infected became sick on Oct. 10 this year. Age information is available for the 1,132 people. Patients’ ages ranged from less than 1 to 97 years old, with a median age of 37 years.

Many were young children: 268, or 24 percent, were younger than 5 years, and 140, or 12 percent, were younger than 1 year. Of 1,107 people with gender information available, 646 were female. Of 829 people with information available, 273, or one-third, were hospitalized. That is a higher than usual rate of hospitalization for Salmonella outbreaks.

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