Laura Gieraltowski, lead of the Foodborne Outbreak Response Team at the CDC’s Outbreak Response and Prevention Branch, Division of Foodborne, Waterborne, and Environmental Diseases, has presented a review of multistate outbreaks of Salmonella infections linked to melons grown in Indiana.
During her presentation at the annual conference of the International Association for Food Protection (IAFP), Gieraltowski discussed the process involved in tracing a 2020 Salmonella Newport outbreak back to cantaloupe consumption.
In 2022, an outbreak of Salmonella Typhimurium was investigated. The cluster detection indicated a connection to the FDA soil samples from the 2020 Salmonella Newport outbreak. The investigation revealed that 100 percent of the surveyed individuals reported eating melon, with 79 percent mentioning cantaloupe and 73 percent mentioning watermelon.
The traceback investigation pointed to a common Indiana melon packing house as the likely source of the outbreak. Unlike the 2020 outbreak, the 2022 outbreak was linked to a different melon grower located several miles away.
Source: foodsafetynews.com
