Two more cases of illness are being blamed on the outbreak of E. coli linked to fresh spinach. That raises the number of people sickened to 173 in 25 states.
So far, 92 people have been hospitalized, including a Wisconsin woman who died. Two other deaths have been reported in suspected cases — a child in Idaho and an elderly woman in Maryland — but those cases are still being investigated.
Since the outbreak was reported two weeks ago, the FDA has recommended people not eat fresh, raw spinach. State and federal investigators since have traced the contaminated spinach back to three counties in California’s Salinas Valley.
The 25 states that have reported infections are Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming.