Because of antibiotic resistance, 42 percent of patients
stricken with salmonella tied to a California chicken farm have required
hospitalization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
reported Wednesday.
The outbreak's investigation, which has been hampered by
the U.S. government shutdown, got a boost Wednesday with the
announcement that 30 furloughed CDC employees were being called back to
work.
"Ten were brought back to work on foodborne outbreaks," CDC spokeswoman Barbara Reynolds said.
So far, 278 people from 17 states have been reported ill
from chickens traced to three Foster Farms plants in California. About
42 percent of the 183 patients for whom information is available have
been hospitalized -- 76 in all -- which is an unusually high rate for
Salmonella Heidelberg, said CDC spokesman John O'Connor.
"The typical hospitalization rate for salmonellosis is around 20 percent," he noted.
"Antibiotic resistance, as seen in this outbreak, may be
associated with an increased risk of hospitalization or possible
treatment failure in infected individuals," O'Connor added.
Antibiotic resistance is a growing problem, said Dr. Marc
Siegel, an associate professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical
Center in New York City. "It's not an accident that this particular
strain is resistant," he said. "I suspect it's resistant because of the
overuse of antibiotics among farm animals."
Chicken live in squalor, Siegel said. "Ninety-five
percent of chickens are grown in such horrific conditions that they're
standing in poop and they end up infected with salmonella. If one
chicken gets it, they all get it," he said.
All the chickens are treated with antibiotics, which
causes the resistant bacteria to emerge, Siegel said. This use of
antibiotics should be banned, he added.
In different tests, this strain of salmonella linked to
Foster Farms has shown resistance to combinations of the following
antibiotics: ampicillin, chloramphenicol, gentamicin, kanamycin,
streptomycin, sulfisoxazole and tetracycline, O'Connor said.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and
Inspection Service issued a public alert on Monday after receiving
reports that hundreds of people had been sickened, with most illnesses
reported in California.
The CDC and state health departments continue to track
infections, O'Connor said, "but like most federal agencies, CDC has
furloughed a substantial portion of its workforce because of a lapse of
appropriations. We are doing the best we can under these difficult
circumstances to monitor clusters of foodborne illness and respond when
necessary."
The political stalemate in Washington has shut down a
vital monitoring system called PulseNet. CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden
said not having PulseNet, which compares DNA of patients' bacteria to
locate clusters of disease around the country, was an "imminent threat
to health and safety," USA Today reported.
Foster Farms is cooperating with the investigation. "We
deeply regret any foodborne illness that may be associated with any of
our products," Foster Farms President Ron Foster said in a statement.
Although the odds of getting salmonella from chicken are
rare, Siegel advises cooking chicken thoroughly and preventing
cross-contamination by keeping raw chicken away from other foods,
cutting boards and utensils used for meal preparation. Always wash your
hands after handling raw chicken, he added.
Symptoms of salmonella poisoning include diarrhea, cramps
and fever. Some people get chills, nausea and vomiting, lasting up to
seven days, according to the USDA. Although the condition usually gets
better by itself, it can be serious, even fatal, for people with
compromised immune systems, infants and the elderly.
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