According to reporting by AP, smoked salmon tainted with Salmonella has sickened hundreds of people in the Netherlands sparking major recalls there and in the U.S. The Netherlands’ National Institute for Public Health and the Environment said the salmon was traced to a Dutch company called Foppen, which sells fish to many major supermarkets in the Netherlands and stores around the world. In the U.S. Foppen said it only supplied the fish to Costco Wholesale Corp. The Dutch public health institute said that around 200 people — and likely more — have been sickened in the Netherlands by a strain of the bacteria called Salmonella Thompson.
U.S. health authorities say they are also investigating whether the salmon could be at the root of a multi-state outbreak of the illness. A representative for the U.S. Centers for Disease and Control Prevention, Lola Russell, says the federal agency has 85 cases of the same strain from 27 states starting from July 1. Without an outbreak, she said the average number of such cases over that time would be about 30. Russell said 10 people have been hospitalized, with no deaths.
“We’ve investigating a possible link between the cases in the U.S. and cases in the Netherlands,” Russell said.
The recalled product in the United States was sold at Costco as Foppen Norwegian Smoked Salmon Slices 12 Oz and Kirkland Signature Norwegian Imported Smoked Salmon 2 x 12 Oz.