Killer cantaloupes: US salmonella outbreak kills 2, sickens nearly 150
Officials are warning people to stay away from Indiana-grown cantaloupes after a salmonella outbreak.
Cantaloupes are behind an outbreak of salmonella that has sickened 141 people and killed two others over the last month.
CDC officials said that the cantaloupes were traced to a farm in southwestern Indiana and advised people not to eat the fruit grown in that region.
Both deaths occurred in Kentucky but 20 states have been affected by the outbreak.
NBC News reported that 50 cases caused by the outbreak were in Kentucky, while 17 were confirmed in Illinois and 13 others in Indiana.
“Usually the pattern is to see outbreaks in the summer. But we’re seeing about double the number of cases this year,” Kraig Humbaugh of Kentucky’s Department for Public Health told Reuters.
More from GlobalPost: Cantaloupes kill up to 16 people in listeria outbreak
The CDC said that it was investigating other types of melons, particularly watermelons, to see if they were also infected.
Officials in Kentucky said that they had traced the outbreak strain of salmonella using samples of two melons at a Kentucky retail location.
The new outbreak comes just under a year after cantaloupes were tied to a listeria outbreak that killed 30 people in 11 states.
On Friday, the Examiner reported that cantaloupes and honeydew melons were recalled from a North Carolina farm after being tested positive for listeria.
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