Listeria Risk: 2 Dead, Including 1 In Michigan After Outbreak

MICHIGAN — One person from Michigan is among two dead and seventeen other people who were sickened in a listeria outbreak linked to recalled prepackaged salad brands, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said this week.

The other fatality was in the neighboring state of Wisconsin.

Of the seventeen people who got sick after eating the salads, 13 required hospitalization, the agency said. The states reporting illnesses were Iowa, Minnesota, Ohio and Texas with two illnesses each, and Idaho, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Utah and Wisconsin, each with one illness.

The CDC said the true number of people who got sick after eating the contaminated salads is likely much higher than the number of illnesses reported, and the illnesses may not be limited to the 13 states.

The people who were sickened in the listeria outbreaks ranged in age from 50 to 94, and the median age was 75.

Some people are likely recover without seeking medical care or were never tested, the agency said. In addition, recent illnesses may not have been reported yet because it usually takes three weeks to a month to determine if a listeria illness is part of an outbreak.

State and local public health officials are interviewing the people who got sick, or their family members, to determine what they ate before they became ill. The CDC said that of the nine people interviewed so far, 89 percent ate the packaged salads, and two of them remembered they had eaten a specific brand — one sold by Dole and the other under the Little Salad Bar brand.

Healthy people who eat listeria-contaminated products typically experience no or only short-term symptoms, including a high fever, severe headache, stiffness, nausea, abominable pain and diarrhea; it also may cause miscarriage or stillbirth among pregnant women.