Wal-Mart and southwest Indiana farm only known link to outbreak – Kentucky (50), Illinois (17) and Indiana (13) sickened.
The CDC and FDA have reported that a total of 141 persons infected with the outbreak strain of Salmonella Typhimurium have been reported from 20 states. The number of ill persons identified in each state is as follows: Alabama (7), Arkansas (3), California (2), Georgia (1), Illinois (17), Indiana (13), Iowa (7), Kentucky (50), Michigan (6), Minnesota (3), Missouri (9), Mississippi (2), New Jersey (1), North Carolina (3), Ohio (3), Pennsylvania (2), South Carolina (3), Tennessee (6), Texas (1), and Wisconsin (2). 31 ill persons have been hospitalized. Two deaths have been reported in Kentucky.
Collaborative investigation efforts of state, local, and federal public health and regulatory agencies indicate that cantaloupe grown in southwestern Indiana is a likely source of this outbreak. As a result of the initial investigations by the state health departments in Indiana and Kentucky, a farm in southwestern Indiana has contacted its distributors, which reach outside Indiana into other states, and is withdrawing its cantaloupe from the market place. The farm has agreed to cease distributing cantaloupes for the rest of the growing season. Bloomberg News reported that Wal-Mart has been pulling cantaloupes grown in southwest Indiana from its stores.